Regarding Gogameguru's boards.

TheCatLver · #1

So once again....I'm back... :-?

I was looking through the GoGameGuru's ebay site when I stumbled upon two of their board. Both are shin-kaya multiple pieces but the price are a rather big difference. After asking David about the gist of it, apparently one of the board ($119) is "veneer"?! Honestly, I am so confused. David claims that the board, other than it composition/make up, are technically better than their $239, single-piece board? And look so similar, it's difficult to tell them apart??!! :shock:

How does that work exactly? Does anyone have either of the board with real picture to compare?

-Thanks a lot!!! :bow:

CnP · #2

Have you seen GoGameGuru's own site? Those boards you refer to are (I believe)

https://shop.gogameguru.com/shin-kaya-go-board-24-p/

and

https://shop.gogameguru.com/shin-kaya-go-board-24/

and comparing them there is a fair bit of discription and perhaps more detail in the photos that are available on ebay.

As for the price difference - if there's a core (of cheaper wood) in the veneer version it's going to be cheaper to make. Most people would also be happier paying more for the solid version, I know I would.

btw, I'm planning to buy the Agathis one sometime when I've got the spare cash.
https://shop.gogameguru.com/agathis-go-board-24/

Uberdude · #3

Perhaps a go diagram is worth a thousand words. If you chop(!) the board in half and have a look at the cross-section the cheaper veneer/composite board will be like the top, the expensive one the bottom. White stones are the more expensive shin kaya wood, black the cheaper composite.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code: [go]$$B $$ +---------------------------------------+ $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . O O O O O O O O O O O . . . . | $$ | . . . . O X X X X X X X X X O . . . . | $$ | . . . . O X X X X X X X X X O . . . . | $$ | . . . . O O O O O O O O O O O . . . . | $$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . O O O O O O O O O O O . . . . | $$ | . . . . O O O O O O O O O O O . . . . | $$ | . . . . O O O O O O O O O O O . . . . | $$ | . . . . O O O O O O O O O O O . . . . | $$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ +---------------------------------------+[/go]

gowan · #4

I think the veneered boards are less likely to warp or crack than the "solid" boards. People seem to consider go boards as art objects. That may be justified for the floor boards totally made by hand from genuine kaya wood. Spruce wood (shin kaya) is common wood, and boards made of spruce are mostly machine made. Thus, the spruce boards are more or less utilitarian. In consideration of that, the veneer boards might be more useful just for playing go.

TheCatLver · #5

Uberdude wrote:

Perhaps a go diagram is worth a thousand words. If you chop(!) the board in half and have a look at the cross-section the cheaper veneer/composite board will be like the top, the expensive one the bottom. White stones are the more expensive shin kaya wood, black the cheaper composite.

Click Here To Show Diagram Code: [go]$$B $$ +---------------------------------------+ $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . O O O O O O O O O O O . . . . | $$ | . . . . O X X X X X X X X X O . . . . | $$ | . . . . O X X X X X X X X X O . . . . | $$ | . . . . O O O O O O O O O O O . . . . | $$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . O O O O O O O O O O O . . . . | $$ | . . . . O O O O O O O O O O O . . . . | $$ | . . . . O O O O O O O O O O O . . . . | $$ | . . . . O O O O O O O O O O O . . . . | $$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . , . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | $$ +---------------------------------------+[/go]

That's what I was thinking too. By chance, would it be That noticable? The "veneered" board I mean.

Uberdude · #6

It's probably not that noticeable but the veneer surface is not made of a single piece so you could see some joins in the grain.

eikons · #7

Uberdude wrote:

It's probably not that noticeable but the veneer surface is not made of a single piece so you could see some joins in the grain.

I visited a Go Shop recently to buy myself a proper board, and I had a look at one of these composited veneer boards, although the one I saw was 3cm thick.

There were a couple of things I disliked about it: The wood grain does not meet up at the edges (because every face is a different piece of wood) and one of the corners was slightly damaged, revealing that the outer layer was really thin and the inside (core) was made of the typical cheap compressed wood. Looks a bit like this:

The board was still 70 euros, because it was imported from Japan. Needless to say I didn't buy it.

David points out that it's a good board to resist varying temperatures and humidity, which is actually a good point. I recently played an older player on his beautiful 30-something year old 4-piece shin kaya board. Due to humidity changes in his house, the board was bent, causing one corner to come almost 5mm off the table when pushing the other 3 corners down. Once that happens I'm not sure there's any way to fix it.

Myself I ended up buying a 5-piece chinese board with engraved lines. It's absolutely gorgeous and by virtue of being chinese, cost only 50 eur.

I think the https://shop.gogameguru.com/agathis-go-board-24/ board is also really nice, but the top of the board is painted so you can't see any wood grain. Koreans seem to prefer that for minimizing any distractive elements.

For me, I think that misses the point of why I'd buy a goban. It's not purely functional, I don't need a pretty goban to play the game. I buy it more as a decorative piece in my living room. And to impress other go players who visit. So I prefer to see the grain.

sybob · #8

I think it is about the purpose for which you want to buy a board, personal preference and budget.
Veneered isn't bad or anything, but many appreciate a solid board.
Solid boards may have better appeal, for different reasons like sound while playing, durability, aesthetics, artisan value etc.
I go with Eikons.

gogameguru · #9

TheCatLver wrote:

That's what I was thinking too. By chance, would it be That noticable? The "veneered" board I mean.

Yes, it's noticeable if you know what to look for. The people that make these go to a great deal of effort to line up the grain, as you can see here (but look at the corners where two sides meet carefully). Based on this discussion, it sounds like this distinction is something that's important to you, in which case you might prefer a single piece board. The other board is for people who want to save money and I usually recommend that one first, because it's much cheaper and looks almost the same.

Also, can I repeat an exhortation that I've made earlier on L19? If you're going to buy something from us and you already know about our website or store, then please buy it from our website instead of eBay/Amazon. The difference is that about 20% of what you pay (nearly all the profit in most cases) goes to us instead of some mega marketplace corporation. We use that extra money to keep publishing free news/commentaries/problems/etc on our site and to promote Go. Who knows what they use it for? Probably not Go...

You may also find that you save money at our store. We only sell on marketplaces because so many people will only shop there and by selling a greater volume of equipment we can drive the costs down and reduce prices. However, if everyone only shops on the marketplaces then small stores will eventually close down completely or become 'Amazon shops'. Some people might have noticed that YMI has already done this - fulfilled by Amazon and their website is run by Amazon. All they do now is send the stuff to Amazon's warehouse, so they basically just work for Amazon. That this makes things cheaper for customers is actually a myth. We don't want to work for Amazon and we want to keep sharing our passion for Go on our website and promoting the game if we can afford to.

Here's the original response that I sent to you on eBay last week, to add context to this discussion (I've removed the links that were in the original so as not to spam this forum):

gogameguru wrote:

1. Single Piece Shin Kaya Board ($239)

This first board is made from a very big piece of uncut wood (this is what single piece means). Obviously the wood has to be cut at the edges to make it into a rectangular Go board shape, but there are no lines in the board where the wood was cut, because it hasn't been cut. These boards are the most expensive, because you need a very big, old tree to make them, so the wood is much more expensive. The reason why these shin kaya Go boards are expensive in general is that the wood used to make them costs a lot. It's in high demand because of its nice appearance (we also sell Go boards made with other materials though). Shin kaya is the Japanese name for spruce wood.

2. Multipiece Shin Kaya Board ($184)

It's more common to have smaller trees or pieces of wood that aren't the right shape or size to make into a Go board. In that case the craftsman uses several smaller pieces of wood and joins them together with very strong woodworking glue. The multipiece boards we sell are made out of three pieces. The craftsmen we work with are very skillful, so it's not obvious at first, but if you look carefully at the wood grain on the bottom side of this board in the photos, you can see that the pattern changes where the pieces are joined. This board is cheaper than a single piece board because the smaller pieces of wood used to make it don't cost as much.

3. Shin Kaya Go Board ($119)

This board is less traditional than the first two, because it makes use of modern woodworking techniques to produce a great looking Go board at a lower price. This board is also made from smaller pieces of wood, but with a compressed composite core. This modern technique produces a board with a stable core which is very strong, which means the board won't warp crack even in very hostile climates. This board is costs less, but it should actually outlast the other two, because the wood is so stable (all of them can be expected to last for decades though). The reason why this board costs less, is that material in the core of the board is cheaper. Only the external facing panels use the very expensive wood (spruce) to make the board look nice. This means that an even higher grade of spruce (lighter in color, with a straighter wood grain) can be used on the external panels, because it's used more sparingly. Most people can't tell the difference between this board and the $239 board because the craftsman who makes these boards is very highly skilled. In my opinion this board offers the best value for money and I recommend it for most people. Some people prefer to buy the more expensive boards because they like the idea of a single piece of wood or a more traditional manufacturing style.

Manchu · **#10**

CnP wrote:

btw, I'm planning to buy the Agathis one sometime when I've got the spare cash.
https://shop.gogameguru.com/agathis-go-board-24/

I have both the agathis and the single-piece shinkaya from GGG. I prefer the Agathis.

tekesta · **#11**

I find plain-colored MDF boards to be best for playing Go. The uniform color and texture scheme has hardly anything to distract from play.

Regarding Gogameguru's boards.

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