Shimari probes and kikashi

Questionable idea  

The result to is judged superior for Black by Fujisawa Shuko, who suggests that should have been played at a, followed by at for a base. Nonetheless, here was an interesting move, and got me thinking...

Popularised by Sensei's?  

We've all seen this probe, because it's mentioned in many pages here on Sensei's. Black's usual responses are from a to d. I notice that it's also very popular among dans and low kyus on KGS - could it be that many of these players learned it from Sensei's, or picked it up from other players, who in turn learned it from Sensei's?

A few ideas  

...and so on. The more I thought about it, the more moves started seeming like they might be playable in some circumstances, even better than the probe we all know and love.

So, I decided to go to gobase.org and do some pattern searches. It turns out that just about every move you could think of in the corner gets hits. Not just a few, either - most get hundreds, and even the weirdest ones get dozens.

You even get weird sequences that would never occur to most amateurs, like:

The possibilities are endless  

A similar multitude of moves exists against the high shimari. One can only imagine that there must be even more against the large shimaris.

It's outside the scope of this page to try to examine all the variations (it would make a good book, though!), but it's useful to know that the other options exist. I know that, in the past, I would usually play at a instinctively when preparing to invade a shimari-based moyo, because that's the probe I see all the time. Now, I'll surely start reading out the other options and trying to make an educated decision. If nothing else, it should throw my opponents off, a little.