It's Go time!

I had been saving up and a few weeks ago I was able to get a Go set. It arrived on Feb 24th. I had a cheap one already, but the board and its stones were about half the size of standard set. Now, I have a full sized goban (Go board) and stones. I got it online from Yellow Mountain Imports. They also sell Chess, Shogi, and Mahjong sets along with other games.

When picking out a Go set, Angeles wanted me to get a nice goban while I was more focused on getting nice stones. The goban we picked is a 2" thick bamboo board with 13x13 on one side and 19x19 on the other. I really like the look of the bamboo, which the bowls are also made of. There were reviews on the website saying that the board was sturdy and so I knew that it'd be heavy, but I didn't expect it to be almost 15lbs! The bowls with the stones in them are 3.5lbs each. I have read that some people like heavy boards because if the table gets bumped, the board is less likely to slide around and ruin your game. One thing Angeles and I would like now is a basically a really small short coffee table so we could use this table goban as a floor goban, but I'm also very happy with what I have.

The stones are double convex yunzi stones. Yunzi is a manufatured material that looks like what I would imagine a mixture of stone and glass would be. I love the way they look; it's hard to take a bad picture of them. A lot of people oil their yunzi stones to give them a bit more luster. They are beautiful. Yunzi is used in official Go tournaments in China, or so I've heard.

Before Oiled

Oiled with a food grade mineral oil

Our first game on our new Go set!

Angeles played black with a 4 stone handicap and I was white.

I'm thankful for how much Angeles puts up with my desire to play go. She's so sweet and I know it's not her favorite game. She really likes more relaxed games that don't involve so much critical thinking and she also finds it discouraging to play me because I always win. Nevertheless, she also thinks this is a beautiful game and she's taken time to play with me and has let me teach her a little bit about the game.

I want to write more in this post, but I felt like there's a lot that I want to write about. I love Go, the things I learn from it, and the challenge it brings. I will write another post, hopefully soon.

I got this photo from a post on Pintrest