139.55.7.237: the purpose of the joseki (2005-12-11 17:00) [#721]

Andy Pierce: For the various joseki pages, it would be very helpful if there was also some mention of the whole-board context in which the joseki is useful or appropriate, rather than just presenting a sequence of reasonable looking moves with the motive missing. Some natural questions for this page for example: why the three space pincer, why not one or two spaces? why low instead of high. There must be whole-board issues that make the selection of three space low pincer particularly appropriate or inappropriate... what are those issues?

I'd like to see this added in general on the joseki pages. It seems mostly to be missing and I lack the strength to add it myself.