I have seen pictures of go parlours in Japan where all the table boards seem to be 4 - 5 inches thick or more. I have not seen such thick table boards for sale here in the US. Does anyone know if the thick boards used in Japanese go parlours are just floor boards with the legs removed? Is this considered preferable to using 1 - 2 inch table boards?

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The Master said, To stuff oneself with food all day without worrying about anything, is difficult indeed! But what about weiqi players then? It is better to be one of them than to do nothing!

If you play with a very thick board on a table, you need a table that is lower than normal in order for the board height to remain reasonable for the players. Looking at kuroki goishi, for example, most table boards are in the neighborhood of 6cm, with a few around 7-9 cm and one around 10. 10 cm is still a bit shy of 4". If you feel the need, you can certainly order the thickest one, which looks to be roughly $1,000 plus shipping from Japan and customs duties, but I have never heard anyone complain that their board is "only" 2.5 inches thick.

As has been discussed before, a thicker board can be more stable in terms of warping; but, there is a downside in terms of the space required to store it and the table height vis-a-vis the players. I think it's safe to say that you can think of an extremely thick board like this as a prestige or luxury item over a slightly thinner kaya table board.

I'm not sure why someone would go to the trouble of equipping an entire club with floor boards, only to remove the legs, however.

The standard for go parlors in Japan is around 2.5" which are common for purchase.

any examples?

Here you are:



And here is a larger version.

And here is another, apparently in Kyoto:

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The Master said, To stuff oneself with food all day without worrying about anything, is difficult indeed! But what about weiqi players then? It is better to be one of them than to do nothing!

The bottom one you can see is two boards stacked on top of each other.

huh. thanks for the photos. I would not have guessed.

and at the same time, notice that the tables are lower tables... so I wonder, which came first, the boards or the tables?

I'm not sure either, but some people just prefer a thicker board, without legs.

We haven't really publicized this, but any of the floor boards in our store can be ordered without legs and occasionally someone orders one like that (by emailing). In that case, the legs aren't removed, they're just not attached in the first place so there are no holes left in the board. I imagine that those boards in Machu's photo are the same.

You might think of these as thick table boards, but from another perspective they're just standard floor boards, which never had the legs attached.

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David

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