I wanted a small go board for a small desk to replay games from small books (Appreciating Famous Games paperback). What I really want is something like the miniature 1/3 size set that Kurokigoishiten used to sell.

Well, they still have their 100th anniversary edition available for 333,000 JPY. Very nice but just not for me.


Instead, I went with the Hanayama "BIG SIZE" go set. Big just meaning 19x19, not 13x13 like their other set. I purchased it from Amazon.co.jp for 936 JPY (plus ~1600 JPY in shipping if alone, or maybe a couple bucks if in a larger order, though they ended up sending it to me in a different package). I received the package less than 72 hours after I ordered it. Not quite the same 2-day shipping as from Amazon US, but at least Amazon JP knows how to pack a box and shrink wrap books to sturdy cardboard so that they aren't all jacked up. It's hard to believe that Amazon was ever a bookstore. Anyway, you can find this board on eBay in the US and probably elsewhere. Here is what you get (regular stone at tengen for reference only):




The stones are plastic molded and need to be separated like you are building a model. With two fingers you can push to separate two at once and it goes pretty quickly. All of the stones have circular nubs on the bottom to correspond to circular dimples on the board. There is a bit of "play" but not much. It's surprising how well it works and it makes the small size actually feasible to use. The stones are so small that they are difficult to hold and position. But once you drop the stone, the nub allows it to sort of fall into place. The nub also prevents the other stones from moving around as you are fumbling. I was impressed. I'm not going to lie, it's troublesome but it actually works.

Two additional ziplock bags are provided to store the stones inside the folding game board. There are latches on the board to hold it shut but I wonder about durability so I'll store it in the original box for now. Its about 4.5" by 9".

Thanks for the contribution to the forum which sees few posts these days.

You've posted the trifecta: FB, L19, and reddit; cool.

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David Bogie, Boise ID
I play go, I ride a recumbent, of course I use Macintosh.

That was me on Reddit but I did not post this to Facebook. Though I am happy and not offended if someone else shared.

Reddit is easier to track while L19x19 is easier to search later. I like both.

UPDATE: I see, it's actually someone else that discovered this Go board independently from me. He found it at Mitsuwa (a grocery/novelty store) while I ordered from Amazon JP.