[Seattle Go Center] About our Go stones

Dear Members,

If you’ve been to the Go Center recently, you may have noticed that we have been cleaning and sorting Go stones, so that we have fewer bowls of miscellaneous stones, and more bowls of Go stones with a purpose.  Let me tell you about our different types of stones, and how to tell them apart.

All our stones are in the Japanese and Korean style, with curves on both sides of the stone, a shape often described as “biconvex”.  In the main room, we use two kinds of glass stones.  Most of our stones came from the Nihon Ki-in in Japan about 25 years ago.  They are in the brown wooden bowls.  If you run out of stones in one of these bowls, you can borrow stones of the same color from another brown wooden bowl.  Unfortunately, we cannot find an exact match for these stones, so when we wanted to have more bowls of stones, we bought slightly thicker stones.  (These are 6 Brothers #33 stones, which we got from Korea.  Their edges are also a bit blunter.) Theses stones are stored in the bamboo bowls in the main room.  Please try to keep these stones separate from our original stones.  But you can exchange stones between bamboo bowls.

The regular glass stones we sell from our display case are slightly thinner than what we use in the main playing room.  These are 6 Brothers #31 stones.  Many people regard them as “standard stones”.  They are also described as 8.5 mm thick biconvex stones.

For outreach events such as Sakura Con, and school clubs, we use smaller glass stones.   (Both their diameter and their thickness is somewhat less than standard.)  The glass stones are generally stored in screw top containers with blue or red lids.  These stones are not well matched, but they are all small.  They are sometimes called 6.5 mm stones, or 6 Brothers #21 stones. If the pint container is full, there are enough stones for a 19x19 game.  We often use half full containers for school visits, where we are playing 9x9 and 13x13 games.  These containers are stored in the closet and in the canvas totes that are at the back, in the NE corner of our space.  A reminder: if you want glass stones for your outreach project, look for the colored lids. 

We also have plastic stones for outreach and schools.  They slip around more on the board, but they are a lot easier to carry.  We have Ing style plastic stones, which are thick and stored in screw top containers with clear lids.  We also have thinner plastic stones, which are stored in plastic containers with snap top lids, which are tan or clear.

For backup at big tournaments, we also have Ing tournament stones.  They are stored in large distinctive hexagonal boxes.  Please open these boxes carefully, moving the sliders first.  These are matte plastic stones with metal centers (for weight).  In general, we do not use these stones, but they are available for big events.

Cheers,

Brian