I know this is silly to many probably, but even though I have a nice 19x19 board already I find myself playing more 9x9 and 13x13 games on vinyl, paper, or even got a leather board. The thing is, I really want a fairly nice wood board for these purposes. To that end I have searching for a nice wood, reversible 9x9 and 13x13 board...or even just a nice non-reversalbe 13x13 board.

Any opinions on which of the three below may be the best quality? Any others out there that I have missed that may be better?

1) 1/2 inch Agathis board: https://www.yutopian.com/yutop/cat?prod ... category=T
2) 0.7'ish inch Agathis board: http://www.kurokigoishi.co.jp/english/o ... index.html (shipping would probably be more than the board, LOL)
3) not very promising (for my want of a real wood board) 1/3 inch veneer board http://www.ymimports.com/p-1180-shin-ka ... 3-9x9.aspx

Any thoughts? And no, I do not have the skills to make my own.

I have the 1/2" Agathis board from Yutopian and highly recommend it. Very portable, perfect for short games.

I have the 1/3 inch Shin-Kaya Chinese veneer board from YMI, which I bought a few years ago with their melamine single-convex stones. The board is real wood (albeit veneer), and faithfully mimics Kaya wood grain in a pleasing manner--I would recommend it as a nice "quick game" board to have handy. This set is still available on Ebay for $44.30 (shipping included), slightly cheaper than direct from the YMI website (go figure); the board alone on Ebay is $35.30. Now all that said, the Agathis board at Yutopian is solid wood and made in Japan, and costs only $33.00 + $9 s&h, so you may want to pay a bit more to get solid wood and (reputed) higher quality--YMMV. One last consideration is the size of the stones you will be using with your new board--Chinese stones are larger in diameter and thus won't fit properly on a Japanese or Korean board, which has closer lines than a Chinese board; conversely, Japanese or Korean stones will look a bit lonely on the slightly wider Chinese grid. HTH.

Sorry... I was actually thinking/talking about this Goban

https://www.yutopian.com/yutop/cat?prod ... category=t

My stones are size 34 and 28 for the two sets I have, so assume the Japanese boards will be the best.

Strongly leaning towards the Yutopian one. Eyeballing one of their bowl sets too but they don't have a photo of it. Grrrr.

why not:

http://www.schaakengo.nl/

go -> mini gobans

although i think transport costs make them prohibitive

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Promotor and Librarian of Sensei's Library