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Equipment
Path: Club   · Prev: SettingUpAGoClub   · Next: GoClubActivities
    Keywords: Equipment

See also Go terms used for Go equipment, equipment dimensions, buying equipment and making your own equipment.


Besides opponents of course, to play Go one needs a 19x19 board (Goban) , 181 black stones, 180 white stones (Go-ishi) and two bowls for the stones (Go-ke).

Alternatively a computer with an internet connection and a Go client will do. It is even possible to play against the computer.


"The round lid is like the sky and the board the land.
The world is in black and white fighting over glory and name."

-- from a Chinese poem by Luo Guanzhong,
14th century author of [ext] Romance of Three Kingdoms

uxs: I'm thinking of buying some kind of portable go board. Is there a consensus on what kind of board is easiest for carrying around, while you're still able to play a decent game on it ? Would a foldable board be best ? Or a magnetic one ? Or even something made in leather that you can roll up ?

BobMcGuigan: Magnetic sets are probably the most portable, but they are smaller than regulation size and it is somewhat awkward to play and remove stones on a crowded board. I think they are most usefull for travel situations like playing on a train or plane. The ultimate in portability for full sized sets is the "roll-up" or "fold-up" leather or vinyl board. These require a hard flat surface underneath so you can't easily use them on a park bench or on the ground. That leaves folding or slotted boards. Both of these work well. The mechanics of carrying them around are easily solved with an appropriate tote bag of some sort or, if money is not a big issue, you can buy the go carrying case from Samarkand.

Velobici: Each choice is a compromise versus a table board and stones.
A slotted board or a folding board provides a full size rigid playing surface and can be used with full size stones. The president of the [ext] Baltimore Go Club uses his slotted board every club meeting. The board and stones are protected by a carry case that can be obtained from [ext] Samarkand. There are two downsides to this choice. The size of the board and stones combination. This is a piece of that will not fit under your feet in a airplane. It will fit in the overhead bins, however. The stones can slide around on the board, so use in a moving vehicle or at sea is not reliable. Nonetheless, for frequent, serious use when the size and weight is not an issue, this is the best traveling solution.
Vinyl and leather roll up boards can be full size and used with full size stones. They are much less bulky packages, but still will not fit under your feet on a plane. The stones can be placed in tube like containers placed end to end, forming the shape of a single long tube, and the board rolled around the two tubes containing the stones. The stones and the board playing surface are protected. The big drawback is the lack of a rigid surface. Once again playing in a moving vehicle or at sea is difficult.
Magnetic sets offer the ability to play while in motion. That is their one advantage. The stones need to be placed and removed rather deliberately, which one feel like a beginner all over again. Magnetic sets come in a wide variety of sizes. The playing surface is on the outside of the box that contains the stones. This is not protected and needs to be placed inside a cover of some sort.

axd: After searching for a while, I found a pocket-size magnetic go set (Marchand) that fits in a big pocket: the board folds in three pieces (the inner surfaces are magnetic), and the stones are very small, flat half-magnetic discs that are kept on two separate magnetic sheets. If you consider buying one, check that the folds do not coincide with the lines, because stones might not stick enough there, making the set rather worthless (but maybe you can live with it; I wouldn't like to use it in that moving vehicle). My set (Hartung Spiele, Berlin, MG 100) shows that the makers did not know everything about go: especially the fact that the squares should actually be slightly rectangular for the optical correction; this would also have helped in avoiding the folds as there would be more spacing between the horizontal lines for the folds.



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