I just got back from a vacation in Greece, where I unexpectedly found a lovely go set with clam shell stones and an old go book by Arthur Smith in the house where I was staying. I played through parts of the book on rainy days, and had a wonderful time exploring go without the internet. The set was so nice that even my daughter decided to temporarily drop her disdainful attitude towards my hobby and played a few games with me. Greece was nice too.

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Patience, grasshopper.

daal, that's nice. You wouldn't happen to have any (close-up) shots of the shell stones by any chance, would you? ...some work ahead...

Oddly, I failed to take any pictures, except for the problems in the back of the book. The stones were size 31, relatively new (the boxes they came in were still there, full of marbles) and they were in nice dark bowls. The board was a portable two piece one, but oddly on the reverse side, someone had inked on a 10x10 grid. I suspect it was someone like me who felt go would be easier if you put the stones on the squares instead of the intersections.

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Patience, grasshopper.

Actual marbles, or is that code for something? 10x10 intersections or 10x10 squares? Could it have been a chess board...?
But chess and shogi are both 9x9 intersections (8x8 squares). XiangQi is 9x10 intersections (32x2 squares, with a divider)...

Pente?

Actual marbles

It was 10x10 lines = 9x9 squares. Perfect for playing 9x9 go using the squares instead of the intersections. I have no idea what else it was designed for...

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Patience, grasshopper.

9x9 squares could very well be for shogi.

Shogi is 9x9 squares, not 8x8.

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I have heard that Gomoku is sometimes played on 10x10.

There used to be go boards in Japan -- probably still are -- with a 9x9 square, 10x10 intersection grid on the back. People used the squares to play shogi, the intersections to play go or gomoku. I heard of beginners playing 10x10 go before I heard of them playing 9x9 go.

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The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

My (modern) cheap Taiwanese go board has xiangqi on the back.

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Revisiting Go - Study Journal
My Programming Blog - About the evolution of my go bot.

Further to Bill Spight's post, on ebay there are currently 10x10 magnetic go sets for sale, shipping from Hong Kong. Presumably, in some parts of the world 10x10 is not considered all that unusual.

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And the go-fever which is more real than many doctors’ diseases, waked and raged...
- Rudyard Kipling, "The Light That Failed" (1891)

Interesting - why not! And 46 of them have already been sold! Even numbers of lines have the physical advantage on a folding board that there's no line on the joint. As for the effect on strategy and tactics, there is no proportionally unique point (tengen) for one player to take advantage of, but there's also no desirable middle point on the sides. You can't play it on many servers - but you could play it here...

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$c 10x10 go
$$ ------------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . , . . . . , . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . , . . . . , . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ ------------------------[/go]

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Patience, grasshopper.

Thanks, ordered two of ’em (no shipping costs, for $10 they’re a good deal)

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“The only difference between me and a madman is that I’m not mad.” — Salvador Dali ★ Play a slooooow correspondence game with me on OGS?

Interestingly, the Hoshi points are on 4-4 on these boards

Click Here To Show Diagram Code

[go]$$c 10x10 go
$$ ------------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . , . . , . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . , . . , . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ ------------------------[/go]

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“The only difference between me and a madman is that I’m not mad.” — Salvador Dali ★ Play a slooooow correspondence game with me on OGS?

that would be a shogi board then.

If you click on the link, you'll see that it's not.

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Patience, grasshopper.