MarylandBill wrote:3. Durability. Again, while $50 may not be much to spend on a Go set, I don't want to have to spend it again in a year just because the board cracked or the stones broke apart.
If ~$50 is your budget, I'd go with the a set like this one offered by Shodan Imports. You could contact them and see about swapping the single-convex yunzi stones for bi-convex ones, and by how much that raises the price. YMI probably has similar offers.
Other materials will increase the price. (Although glass stones may be cheaper than yunzis.)
I was just curious if anyone has any experience with this set?
Although my set came with plastic stones (nonetheless rather nice) and very nice wooden bowls, I'm pretty sure that my board is the same as the one illustrated, and mine has 2 deficiencies: the board is a bit wobbly (I fixed this with some felt under the feet) and the black painted lines tend to chip and peel. You should go for a better board.
judicata wrote:I like spruce, and I like shin-kaya boards. I bought my primary board from Shodan Imports and I'm extremely happy with it. It is entirely possible the boards we received from YMI are from a different source. Though color is notoriously difficult to display accurately through a camera and unknown computer monitor, I'll try to post some pictures comparing the two boards when I get home. The YMI board is good for the price, but it is an unnatural yellow, and covered in some kind of thick plastic-like coat.
The further description of your YMI board here indicates to me that we did indeed get different boards. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on the SI board. I'll probably end up with one from them eventually, if I can keep after my tsumego
Where've you been? Zatoichi could slice the board in half, put it back together again and rearrange the position so fast that no-one even knew he'd drawn his sword - and he was blind. ~ John Fairbairn
I had a friend over who plays go and we played a few dozen games on my board and he pointed out some small cracks in between a couple slats and when I looked today on the other side there is a crack between the seams of one of the bamboo slats. I'm not overly surprised as I live in an extremely dry climate, but a bit disappointed they're already appearing after only having the board for a few weeks. Fairly certain this just means that the bamboo was not dried properly during the manufacturing process. None of the cracks are very large or noticeable I'll have to wait see how bad they get.
sixko wrote:The further description of your YMI board here indicates to me that we did indeed get different boards.
Interesting. I neglected to mention that my board is slotted, which is perhaps an important fact that may explain the difference (or they switched suppliers, or the supplier changed materials, etc.). Sorry, I was too occupied yesterday to deal with pictures, but I'll still post them for posterity.
