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Equipment Dimensions
Path: MakingYourOwnEquipment   · Prev:   · Next: MaterialGoban
    Keywords: Equipment

First a general note: even the Nihon Ki-in rules do not specify exactly which sizes must be used (apparently, the phraseology is "is usually..."). From this, one can infer that the actual sizes are not of immense importance. The numbers here will not be agreed on by everyone either (see the discussion below).

Board

A 19x19 board should measure 454.5 mm by 424.2 mm. It should be 151.5 mm thick.

The lines are typically 1 mm thick. They should be spaced 22 mm apart left to right and 23.7 mm apart top to bottom.

Star point markers are typically 4 mm in diameter.

There should be 181 black stones and 180 white stones, which should be between 6 and 10 mm thick. White stones should have a diameter of 22.1 mm. Black stones should be a little bit larger. The stones are bi-convex; i.e., thicker in the middle than on the edges. (However, they shouldn't be "sharp").

Just for completeness: the following table recapitulates this information in other measurement units:

 Dimension                  SI       Imperial      Japanese
                           (mm)       (inch)
 Board width               424.2     16 23/32     1.4  shaku
 Board length              454.5     17 29/32     1.5  shaku
 Board thickness           151.5      5 31/32     0.5  shaku
 Line spacing width-wise    22           7/8      7.26 bu
 Line spacing length-wise   23.7        15/16     7.82 bu
 Line thickness              1           1/32     0.3  bu
 Star point marker diameter  4           5/32     1.2  bu
 Stone diameter             22.5        29/32     7.5  bu

(1 inch = 25.4 mm. 1 shaku = 100 bu = 303 mm.)

Here are a couple of [ext] Google Groups articles that have different dimensions: [ext] Goban dimensions, a summary and [ext] Re: Go Board Dimensions.

A bit more detail on the "whys" of the above

A go board is not meant to be square. When seated in front of a square board, it would look wider than tall. Therefore, for reasons of perspective, they are longer in the direction from one player to the other than from left to right.

Black stones are a little bit larger than the white ones to compensate for an optical illusion which would otherwise make the white ones look a little bit larger.

The stones should be a little bit larger than the left-to-right line spacing, which keeps them from being placed perfectly regularly on the board. This is for aesthetics; the far east culture traditionally does not like symmetry[1].

The stone thickness is a matter of taste. There are so-called "Chinese" type stones that are not symmetrical; they have an "up" side and a "down" side. (I've never seen these in real life.)

The board thickness given is for a floor board. The floor board typically has legs which are roughly 10 cm (4 inches) high, so that the playing surface is around 25 cm (10 inches) high. Playing on floor boards means that you sit on the floor, possibly with an armrest. Often, table boards are used (placed on top of a table). Table boards can be up to 5 cm (2 inches) thick.

Bowls

There are no sizes or requirements for the bowls. Suffice it to say that they need to be large enough to carry all the stones, and that a lid is useful, so that you can temporarily store the stones which you have captured.

BobMcGuigan: When floor boards with legs are used in Japan it is usual for the bowl to be placed on the floor in the middle of the side of the board facing the player, slightly underneath the board. This would mean that bowls shouldn't be too tall to fit underneath the board.


[1] Couldn't that dislike of symmetry be the cause of the not-square boards, too? SteffenGlueckselig

bkhl: I wouldn't think so. If that were the case it would hardly be made so that the rectangles look square from the players' perspective.

protognsis?: The length spacing would need to be more than 15/16ths in order for the board to look square from the player's perspective. Also, it varies ALOT based on the angle of depression from the person's eye level to the board.


Randall: I had trouble finding this page just now. (I'm about to buy some cheap equipment and I wanted to check what SL had to tell me about regulations sizes.) Had I not been so confident that it must exist, I would have given up before finding it. Equipment is the right word, but it wasn't the first thing that came to my mind. I searched for board, stones, regulation, and size. I don't know how hard it is to make the page easier to find -- perhaps people just need to be cleverer than or as persistent as I am.



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This is a copy of the living page "Equipment Dimensions" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2004 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.