I have known this as “Forego the small and take the big.”
In German: Verwirf das Kleine und nimm das Große.
The difference is between “save” and “take”, therefore your version sounds more like a sacrificing own stones, while the one that I know is about opponent stones.
Are you sure about that one? 
Danke für den Lacher Bro 
There seem to be infinitely many interpretations for this. But yours is basically the same as the one on the Korean Wikipedia. See my German translation, it’s the same idea just differently worded. Good observation!
Thanks but … was war da jetzt so witzig? What was the joke in here? I’m stumped.
No! Proverbs should stay in your awareness, reminding you of things, but it is quite reasonable for them to need some amplification before they are understood, especially when they are metaphorical.
If those wiki pages are useful, which I think they are, that supports my case.
Not because of any difficulty understanding them, but by simple carelessness 
A proverb that needs explaining!
Not pithy enough!
I used to play on a chess server where every time you opened a correspondence game, a Chess-related quote would appear above the board. I always loved that. Added flavor, and had some timeless advice. In light of that experience, this seems very cool. If successful, would adding further proverbs be possible rather than keeping it at 10? (though I understand the advantage of keeping the scale limited to 10 at first to avoid overextending the will to translate)
The 10 golden rules come from an ancient go master by the name of Wang Jixin (c. 698-757 CE), so for this particular thing, yes there’s a good reason for 10 and to focus on the translations of his writings. However, I like that idea of having go sayings and proverbs elsewhere and I think that could certainly extend far beyond these 10, thanks for the idea!
IIRC I have (at least) three books about Go proverbs in my library, some old, one newer.
There is yet another one that I recently saw:
But the price of ~60 € is a little hefty for my tiny pension, so I’ll have to leave that for others to purchase.
And then I also have a book in my library about The 36 Stratagems applied to Go … also extremely interesting, IMO.
The origin of these particular sentences/guidelines, as I posted previously, before the 1300s, is largely unknown. However, the association with Wang Jixin (王積薪) largely came from the mentioning of his work in the History of Song (宋史), largely compiled in the 1340s in the Yuan dynasty (it is customary for the dynasty after to compile the history of the previous dynasty). It listed Wing as the author of a work called 棋訣 with 3 volumes (the same word 訣 for the 十訣), but this work didn’t survive (or we don’t know what was supposed to be associated with it, only the book name survived).
About the same time period, in work from the late Song Dynasty to the early Yuan Dynasty like 忘憂清樂集 include a work also called 棋訣, and is said to be the work of 劉仲甫 (lived sometime in the late 11th century to 12th century, and this 棋訣 talked about weiqi specifically, and bared no resemblance to 十訣, but with 4 “chapters”)
However, in later work like 玄玄棋經, the exact same paragraph of works was “renamed” as 棋法 instead of 棋訣. Even later works like 秋仙遺譜, 石室仙機, or 萃奕搜玄 (all compiled in the 16th century), started to follow and copy-paste the exact format and attached the 棋訣 or 圍棋十訣 behind 棋法, but with no author name attached to them, or listed as 無名氏 (unknown author)
So in modern time, when people started to make sense of these old works (like those written in the 1940s of 中国圍棋史 by 李耀東), their trend of thoughts was that since there was a work named 棋訣 by Wang (王積薪), and also a known work also called 棋訣 by 劉仲甫 but later renamed as 棋法, they would “transfer” the “simpler” work of only ten sentences for the more ancient author Wang, and the later work for 劉仲甫. However, as I mentioned in my earlier post, there are no known sources of these 10 sentences before the 1330s. And the contribution of it to Wang was solely based on one word 訣 used in the name of a lost work, but a work of the same name 棋訣 already existed when the name of that work was compiled. Hence, why often both Wang (王積薪) or 劉仲甫 are listed as the alleged authors, but likely there were some other works, maybe similar to the later 棋訣, not associated with the 十訣 existed.
This is probably a more affordable one from long ago.
David Mitchell’s Go proverbs from 1980 (right image). Think the left image is more recent.
(The book by John Power has 500 pages of large format, so the price per kg is very reasonable for those who can afford it.)
So, you’re telling me there’s a chance it was in fact the ancient enigmatic Wang Jixin who bestowed his wisdom in the form of the most famous Go proverbs that reside in many a Go club around the world 1400 years later, and that despite the efforts of devious Chinese Chess scholars attempting to steal the sayings for themselves, they have been unable to prove otherwise? Interesting, I shall have to watch out for this cabal of Chinese Chess scholars, thank you for the heads up.
(In all seriousness thanks for the history, that’s pretty interesting.)
Proverb should sound mysterious. There is no point for correct and clear translation if it loses style.
Proverb translation without style is strongly worse than just normal explanation of Go.
OGS should include proverbs for art purposes only if it looks like art.
I have asked several friends about this. The overwhelming majority indeed did not consider it to be funny. My bad.
Thanks for all the suggestions everyone, I’ve edited the original post to incorporate and here’s what things are looking like:
I did take some liberties with the suggestions in an attempt to get the words to line up nicely, let me know if y’all have any better suggestions.
I guess this is one of these things where it will be impossible to get everyone to agree.
Protect while attacking
The original version seems to suggest that the player should make sure that he has no big weaknesses before he attacks which sounds like much more useful advice to me.
So maybe “Remove weakspots, then attack”.
Abandon small, save big
As trohde pointed out this misses the original point (according to our sources and I think we used different ones).
Good shape finds sente
The translation I found says something like “Avoid hasty moves” which is super short, super clear and great advice (that I myself need to follow more).
Play locally, think globally
I mean this one sounds good and I get what you want to say. On the other hand it deviates from the translation I found and also where else am I going to play if not locally (it does sound a little funny).
Near strength, play save
Very different from the translation I saw. That’s actually basically what Number 10 states. Number 9 is more like “Meet strength with strength”.
Conlusion
Anyways, different sources seem to interpret the proverbs differently. So I guess in the end it doesn’t really matter as long as it’s sound advice.
But it’s also important not to create weaknesses while attacking. Like if your attacking group has a lot of cutting points, then this may backfire later.
If by “hasty move” you mean a move that aims at fast development but leaves weaknesses, then the question is how to avoid hasty moves. Making honte moves with good shapes is a way to achieve that. Such moves look slow but allow later fast development.
Yes, you are completely right. Both ideas make sense I think.
I personally still like the version of “Tami’s paraphrasing” and of the “Korean Wiki” better. Sometimes you really want to attack but have a huge costly weakness that you overlooked, and attacking instead of defending costs you the game. At least that happens to me once in a while haha. This proverb could capture exactly that scenario.
I meant “hasty” as in regards to time. The Korean Wiki worded this as “Do not make hasty judgments or play too easily; you must think carefully before placing a move.” which to me has a pretty direct focus on the time you take before placing a move. This is also in line with the London Go Club interpretation.
And again at least to me this is the much clearer and more obvious advice. I’m better at Blitz and Correspondence games because when I play Blitz both me and my opponent are short on time, and when I play Correspondence I take a lot of time to think carefully about a move. BUT when I play longer live games then I tend to play like it’s a Blitz game and don’t take the time to think that I would have in theory. I think this is why that’s my worst category. So I should probaby “Avoid hasty moves” or “Think before action”.
Having said that we know very little about where these exact sentences came from, we also have a few clues that might lead more ancient roots. In the same History of Song (宋史), it also described a rarely known work that didn’t survive, but recorded its “brief”.
慎修善弈棋，太宗屢召對弈，因作《棋說》以獻。大抵謂：「棋之道在乎恬默，而取舍為急。仁則能全，義則能守，禮則能變，智則能兼，信則能克。君子知斯五者，庶幾可以言棋矣。」因舉十要以明其義，太宗覽而稱善。
It came from a biography section about a rarely known scholar/Go master(?) named 潘慎修, who lived in the late 10th century, just at the end the great divide era between the Tang and Song dynasties to the beginning of the Song dynasty. And he was summoned by the 2nd emperor of the Song dynasty (who was famous for loving weiqi and had many stories about him and weiqi in history) to play weiqi with him.
潘慎修 said to contribute his work called “棋說” (an explanation of Weiqi) to the emperor, and listed the brief of the work (here is a translation of it). The key phrases seemed to be the first two sentences 棋之道在乎恬默，而取舍為急, roughly translated using more in terms of weiqi, as the way of weiqi is about patience and not starting a fight unnecessarily (don’t be hasty), and the most crucial to known when to take and sacrifice (sound familar?)
However, the second half of the brief is more or less not so much “applicable” to weiqi, using the common trope in Confucianism 5 virtues 五常 (仁,智,禮,義, 信), as guidance to stay whole (全), defense (守), variability/flexibility(變), balance (兼), counter/overcome hardship (克). Which is somewhat typical in the Song and Ming Era, at the height of Confucianism (everything has to be related to it to get the attention of the Emperor).
What is more interesting is what it says after the brief. It says “因舉十要以明其義，太宗覽而稱善”. 潘慎修 listed 10 important key points to explain the meaning of his works, and when the Emperor read these and praised them. This is probably the first time chronologically we find sources describe something akin to some 10 key points/phrases, and from the brief, they seemed to be about a work that is very high-level and abstract, and seemed to be able to apply to more than just weiqi. We had records about works of weiqi before the 10th century, and they mostly seemed to be very " mundane" and practical, using weiqi specific terms. The 10 sentences that had so many interpretations seemed to be quite unique among them (even the words used are quite unusual, more poetry-like). The likelihood of something being recorded and surviving is also higher when it was associated with an emperor.
(However, since the original full works 棋說 didn’t survive, we have nothing to compare them to, and the source said nothing about where the 10 key points came from or what they were, it is still likely that they were well known at the time already, and just used to explain his work, and where they came from might still be unknown)
IIRC that’s one of those I have in my library. Next time I force myself upstairs I’ll try to remember to make photos of all proverb books I have there.
Haha, but seriously, I’d want to know what YOU found so funny about it – we might actually share the same whacky humour … it’s only that sometimes I am joke-blind (and ironly-blind also).
OK, you convinced me, despite the facts 1. that I don’t know whether I will read it, and 2. that I live off a tiny pension that actually precludes buying expensive books of which I’m not sure whether I will read them … because I am (and always have been) crazy about books 
