The way of chess and go prizes strictness and care.

博弈 ('games of chance and board-games') here means go; 貴乎嚴謹 is 'sets its value on rigor.' The treatise opens with its governing principle.

The superior play lies in the center, the inferior at the edges, the middling in the corners — this is the constant rule of the go-player.

腹 ('the belly') is the board's center, 邊 the sides, 角 the corners; 常法 is 'the standing rule.'

The rule says: 'Better to lose a stone than to lose the initiative.'

子 in 一子 ('one stone') is zǐ; 一先 ('one move ahead,' the initiative) is the crucial tempo of play. The maxim prizes position over material.

Striking on the left, look to the right; attacking behind, watch what lies ahead.

視 and 瞻 both mean 'to look, watch'; the parallel counsels attention to the whole board while acting on one part.

There is a first that becomes last, and a last that becomes first.

A paradox of tempo: the order of moves may reverse their effect. 先 and 後 ('before' and 'after') play against each other.

Where two groups both live, do not try to cut them; where all is alive, do not needlessly connect.

生 and 活 ('living') describe groups with secure eyes; 斷 ('to cut') and 連 ('to connect') are the basic operations, here counseled against when pointless.

In spreading out, do not be too loose; in pressing close, do not be too cramped.

闊 ('wide') and 密 ('dense') are the two errors of spacing; 疏 ('sparse') and 促 ('crowded') their excesses. Balance is all.

Rather than cling to stones in the hope of saving them, better to abandon them and take the victory;

子 in 戀子 ('to cling to stones') is zǐ; the couplet weighs sacrifice against greed, favoring the sacrifice that wins.

rather than move off alone to no purpose, better to make your position firm and shore yourself up.

行 in 獨行 ('to go alone') is xíng; 固之而自補 is 'to strengthen and mend one's own.' Consolidation over aimless expansion.

When they are many and I am few, first contrive to live;

彼眾我寡 ('they many, I few') is the position of weakness; 謀其生 is 'to plan for survival.' Defense before ambition.

when I am many and they are few, strive to extend my power.

務張其勢 is 'to work to spread one's momentum' — the mirror of the preceding line: strength should press its advantage.

The good winner does not wrangle; the good arrayer does not fight;

The treatise turns to paradoxes in the manner of the military classics: 不爭 ('does not contend') and 不戰 ('does not do battle') are the marks of mastery that wins before the clash.

the good fighter is not defeated; the good loser is not thrown into disorder.

善敗者不亂 ('the one skilled even in losing is not confounded') completes the sequence — even defeat, well handled, keeps its composure.

In go, one begins by joining in the orthodox and ends by winning through the unexpected.

正合…奇勝 ('to engage with the orthodox, to conquer with the surprising') is drawn straight from Sunzi's Art of War; the treatise makes go a school of strategy.

Whenever an opponent, with nothing pressing, shores himself up, he has a mind to invade and cut you off;

侵絕 ('to encroach and sever') is the hidden intention read from an apparently quiet move. The treatise teaches the reading of intent.

one who abandons the small and does not rescue it has a design upon the great;

圖大 ('to plan for the large') is the strategy behind a willing small loss. Every move betrays a purpose to the discerning.

one who plays as his hand falls is a man without a plan;

隨手而下 ('to set down at the whim of the hand') is thoughtless play; 無謀 is 'devoid of strategy.'

and one who responds without thinking follows the road to defeat.

應 in 不思而應 ('to answer without reflection') is yìng, 'to respond'; 取敗之道 is 'the way that invites defeat.'

The Book of Songs says: 'Anxious and cautious, as though standing at the brink of a chasm.'

惴惴小心，如臨于谷 is quoted from the Shijing (Ode 195, 小旻); 惴惴 is 'fearful, wary.' The treatise seals its counsel of vigilance with a classical warrant.

This is what is meant.

此之謂也 ('this is what it refers to') is the formulaic close, applying the quoted ode to the art of go.

A poem says:

The narrator caps the treatise with a quatrain on go, turning the game into an image of cosmos and transcendence.

The board is the earth, the stones are heaven; their colors follow yin and yang, and the whole of creation is complete.

為 in 棋盤為地 and 子為天 ('the board is earth, the stones are heaven') is wéi, and 子 ('stones') is zǐ. The black and white stones (色按陰陽) map the game onto the cosmic dualism of yin and yang.

Playing on to the subtle point where all transformations open through, one laughs and boasts of the axe-rot immortal of old.

玄微 is 'the profound and minute'; 通變 ('to penetrate change') is mastery of the game's permutations. 爛柯仙 ('the rotted-axe immortal') recalls the woodcutter who watched immortals play until his axe-handle decayed and a lifetime had passed.