At Sensei's Library, Mr. John Fairbairn wrote the following:

John F. Since I don't think it's mentioned elsewhere, it may be of interest to point out that this list is said to go back to Tang times (when actually group tax may not have applied...). It is attributed to Wang Jixin - Wang the Firewood Collector - the strongest player of his day (early 8th c.). He originally made a living collecting firewood but eventually became the official Hanlin Academy go tutor to the go mad Xuan Zong Emperor. There are many go tales from this period and Wang features in several.

But the actual list seems to be known first from a text of the Ming dynasty (1368~1644) by Liu Zhongda. In this the first maxim is given in the form bude tan sheng (you cannot be greedy and win). There are variant versions also for 7 and 8.

There is a tradition in Japan (espoused by no less than Kitani Minoru, apparently) that the list is the work of Honinbo Shusaku. This has caused a certain amount of umbrage in China.

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I find every bit of historical knowledge that Mr. Fairbairn has brought to his readers in the West to be absolutely fascinating, and I am very thankful for his seemingly untiring efforts. His exhaustive coverage of the full historical context and his exactitude in detail are unmatched in any English-language go material.

With that said (I feel better now, I've wanted to express that for awhile...), my question for the moment is in regards to his above comments on Wang Jixin's 10 Golden Rules of Go. Is the original Ming dynasty text that first mentioned these rules (by Liu Zhongda) available? Has it been translated at all? What other information about Wang the Firewood Collector (great story there!) do we have, and what are the sources? I'm assuming the Chinese text at Sensei's Library is written accurately? Have there been published commentary by professional players regarding these golden rules? Finally, what are the details regarding the claim that Shusaku is the author of these maxims? Is there a standard Japanese form for each of the ten golden rules?

Thanks for any replies to this post!

For reference: http://senseis.xmp.net/?TenGoldenRulesOfGo

I don't know much about those 10 golden rules, but on a related note of pro commentary on ancient Chinese proverbs, I thoroughly recommend Ma Xiaochun's book The Thirty-six Stratagems Applied to Go.

Well, from Firewood Collector to Woodcutter...how about a quiz, then, members of L19:

J. Fairbairn makes reference in one of his excellent books to the "Woodcutter of Qingcheng Mountain", the penname of what important figure in go history?


And...this is also a shameless attempt to keep this forum thread alive... I'd love feedback to the questions in the original post but, alas, perhaps they are not questions that most of us can answer. Looking for an expert historian out there...

It's for sure Chinese in origin, but I actually subscribe to the idea that it was actually originally for Chinese Chess.