Hello!

I'm enthusiastically getting started in Go. I'm interested in a descent (made of Agathis) tabletop and portable set with a budget of around $400 USD. The only site (from USA) seem to carry these items are shop.gogameguru.com. Are there other ones that people can recommend? I've tried reading some posts to find other sites, but many links are dead.

I checked kiseido.com which have a good selection of equipment and will ship to the US. But I am unsure of the import taxes from buying sets from outside the country. Does anyone have experience with import duty taxes? Are there other online sites (in English) that ship to the US?

Thanks so much for your help!

Hi, and welcome to the go community!

http://senseis.xmp.net/?BuyingEquipment%2FinNorthAmerica

If you haven't checked the above, it has a list of websites and brick-and-mortar stores that sell go equipment to North America. I bought my goban from Kuroki Goishi Ten (In Japan) last year. I was able to pay in Japanese Yen through Paypal with minimal hassle. All legal processes and tariffs and whatever else were included in the price quoted to me by the company. I haven't bought a whole lot of stuff from overseas, but I believe this is the standard practice.

Ebay can also be a good resource if you can handle the uncertainty inherent in dealing with private sellers from a distance.

Good luck! Getting a nice go set is a lot of fun.

Hi,

For regular club meets at coffee shops, etc. ("portable set"),
I highly recommend the 10 mm ING weighted plastic stones.
( For the ING stones, I believe Yutopian/Kiseido ships from Los Angeles.
I like the 10 mm ING stones; I strongly dislike the ING containers. )

For home use, Mr. Kuroki's slate & shell stones are very nice.

Are the ING stones still available? I've had problems finding them for sale. Yutopian don't seem to sell them (as Tom pointed out in another thread, we've been trying to source them but not having much luck).

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I recommend gogameguru for finding what fits your budget.

https://shop.gogameguru.com/go-game-sets/

For $308 (with shipping), you could get a slate and shell stones from Kuroki, along with bowls and a spruce ("new kaya") board:
http://shop.kurokigoishi.co.jp/en/item/453

Then later upgrade the board, if you decide you want something else (agathis isn't recommended with shell stones though).

With the extra $100, well...bottle of whisky and a few cigars would be my choice.

And I'd highly recommend the shell stones. Delivery takes about a week.

Edit: For a portable set, I'd choose one from Go Game Guru. Maybe the economy set, so $90 with shipping, then spend the other $310 on the board from Kuroki for home!

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Go Books

Thanks for the responses!

I have another question: Korean vs Japanese vs Chinese Go sets. Are there differences in the official grid sizes and boards?

Yes. From what I've seen, Japanese boards have 'slightly' rectangular grids to create a parallax (which is nice).
Chinese boards seem to have more 'square' grids, thus a less parallax.
I have zero experience with Korean boards.

You can see the 'slightly' rectangular grids in live action of a Japanese board here, from the straight-down overhead view:

Here, maybe you can see a Korean board (?) with the 'slightly' rectangular grids for parallax used for Mr. YSD v. AlphaGo; and a Chinese board with more 'square' squares used by the commentators:
( First over-head board view starts at 00:29:47 ? )

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What Galation said. In terms of quality of products, Japanese >> Korean > Chinese. GGG are nice for budget purchases, but their products will leave you with a sense of lacking. I do not recommend their veneer boards for club use; the stones sound horrible on those (YMI 1.2" shin kaya board is nicer in that respect). Korean glass stones are ok, but will have dents, and some will sit lopsided on the board. I’ve heard their clam and shell stones are inferior too. The agathis board I got from them is ok, but both the sound and the color are dull, and it’s easily chipped for a supposedly hard wood.

So, as I am looking for a new kaya board purchase now, I am thinking of going with Kurokigoishi. Same for clam and shell stones in the future.

I've purchased from the following U.S. sellers. I'd purchase from any of them again.


http://www.ymimports.com/

Multiple go and mahjong sets; several books. Great customer service. They sell through eBay and Amazon as well, if you prefer to use those sites.


http://www.kiseido.com/

Multiple dozens of books. I've never had a problem with an order or shipping.


https://www.slateandshell.com/

Many books. Also an ancient-feeling site, but I've never had any problems.


https://gogameguru.com/

I've picked up a few books from them, and I'm considering a go set.


http://www.yutopian.com/

Go equipment and books. The site is basically a yard sale in HTML form, but there's some decent stuff hiding in there. They really need to update their SSL certificate. Firefox is fine with it, but Chrome flags it as insecure.

Yutopian and Kiseido are blended in some manner that I don't fully understand. I've had orders from one show up from the other, so maybe they just share shipping. In any case, Yutopian was at the congress last year, and they were awesome. Just super nice, first class people.

You're not alone.

Oh, that's good to hear--I was wondering what the shopping might be like! I haven't been to the US Congress (I just missed the last Seattle event due to schedule mayhem), but given that I can see the venue from here I really ought to go!

I have bought from Yutopian both at US Congresses and online,
and also had good experiences with them.
When I ordered the 10mm weighted plastic ING stones from them,
I asked them to please keep the ING containers to themselves so as to save on postage (I explained that I really dislike those containers);
they promptly mailed me only the stones, so I was happy.

My understanding is that Yutopian has exclusive distribution rights for Kiseido's products in the US, so no other vendors in the US carry their products, and Kiseido's orders are passed through to them for the US, unless they don't have the product in stock.

There has been news concerning shortages of go equipment at dealers, see http://www.usgo.org/. Apparently the AlphaGo vs. Lee Sedol match has created a boom in the go equipment business and the stock at some retailers has dwindled. If you find something you like and it is in stock, buy it. And probably prices will increase in the future.