How to make DIY Go Stones

Was shared somewhere yes, but where? This forum is a mess :joy:

There is folding wallet chess, I wonder if there is a wallet sized folding goban. Collecting so many tiny magnets might be a big logistic issue though, and easy to lose some.

I found the 13x13 wallet goban and magnet stones

I think we all forget the cheapest low-tech solution to play Go - pen and paper, with an eraser for ko fight. It is not pretty, but would certainly work.

And for scoring, you can write numbers on the intersection to “count” very accurately.

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And I think this “paper goban” is the craziest I’ve seen



Essentially, just 361 grid-pattern paper origami on one paper. Each origami pattern is precisely cut into the paper.


Push up and down to represent black and white stone. Looks pretty fragile, wonder how long each origami pattern can hold.

There is a video on their website, It’s kinda hard to see which “stones” are pop-up or push-down though, and awkward to push-up from the other side. IMO, pen and paper is probably still the best simple solution for “portable” and “cheap”
https://www.red-dot.org/project/poppu-go-chess-54312

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Maybe an interesting idea for people who cannot see?
Another thing is how easy (or not) it is to manipulate when you capture and when you clean the board. How many games can you play with?

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Yes, their design and interviews did talk about tactile Go, and playing blindly.

Pop-up and push-down seem pretty easy. Not sure how many times can it be smoothed out and reused though, probably depends on the quality of the paper.

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Not only about the ability to reuse, I imagine it could be a very tedious process to realign one by one each stone…

Maybe they should use shape memory wires weave into fabric instead of paper, and it can automatically return to the default blank goban with heat.

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Not answering your question, but …

I really like these single-convex ceramic (NOT Yunzi!) stones that Mateusz Surma sells at his polgote.com.

Solid ceramic Go stones, single convex | polgote.com | books and boards for Go, courses, tournaments

Awesome haptics, and nice weight, just like Yunzi, and—contrary to single-convex Yunzi stones, these are almost unbreakable.

At 39 €, these are the best bang for the buck €uro, IMO.

I’m going to purchase two more sets of these for my local village Go club, as I am phasing out my Shell & Slate stones for reasons of having gone vegan, don’t want to play with body parts of murdered animals.

And the older I get, and the longer I play, especially also having played with high-priced equipment, I find that my preference for traditional double-convex stones was just … sticking with tradition for tradition’s sake, and—snobbery.

I used to justify it with “aesthetics”, but honestly: the second I am into a game, it all doesn’t really matter anymore, as the physical stones are just a real life representation for what’s going on in my mind, and there the opponent’s stones are “the baddies” (imagine evil Orks and Zombies), while my stones are “the goodies” (imagine brave warriors and sorcerers) :smiley:

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Interesting product but comes as 1/3 more expensive (in the same shop)
On my 8 sets of glass stones i broke very rarely, like less as a dozen for all in 10 years. I don’t see it as a big problem as i am not that careful too, but maybe for children goclub playing in a room with tiles or cement floor.
The fact that you can buy one set more every 2 sets has to be considered.

Won’t debate, I hope you still feel confortable to walk on the beach.

Haha, sure I do, like I also enjoy walking generally—I do however try to avoid stepping on animals if I notice them.

<edit> BTW I corrected “or murdered animals” to “of murdered animals” in my other comment. </edit>

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I want one of these. I think it is nice to play with different equipment because it causes us to refresh our thinking a bit from whatever we are used to. When I lived in Japan, I first picked up a plastic stones and bowls set, then a standard chestnut bowls and thick glass stones and a folding board, then a standard Ing set with the counting bowls. I really enjoyed them all and it made it easy to host a go party with friends. At the end of my two years in Fukuoka, the Principal of the high school where I taught (a well-connected Amateur 6d) used his connections to help me get a very good deal on a nice clam/slate set that I still use. Gave away the Ing set to a friend who didn’t have anything to play with, lost half of the plastic ones in transit and the rest I still have. Inexpensive go sets are a great investment in the game!

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So, this is a subject that I have been thinking about for a long time. Before Covid, when I first started thinking about teaching Go to some of my friends and family, as well as through the AGF programs I learned about, and reading Go As Communication, I started wondering what would be the least expensive way to make a set that was also useful enough to keep someone playing until they got a full sized set of their own. Ideally, I imagined a set that would be cheap enough to send one to anyone who wanted one, kind of an idea. I am a wood sculptor who has professional woodworking experience and I also belong to a hackerspace with a laser cutter/engraver. This is what I came up with. One 4’x8’ sheet of 5mm plywood made 28 13x13/9x9 reversible boards. Some slightly warped or slightly different sizes, but all at least the standard minimum. The sheet cost about $20 at the time. I got two small bags of 7/8" Bingo Chips. They are a perfect normal sized stone, though there are some irregular ones as you can see. I probably paid another 20-30 for them, including shipping. The ‘bowls’ might have been the most expensive part, in my opinion for what you get, something like $3 for six with lids at the grocery store, if I remember correctly. Almost 11 complete sets for 13x13, or double that for 9x9, combining white and black in one bowl.

To be clear, this was just an experiment, a prototype run so to speak. The plywood could be purchased in bulk, pre-cut. The bingo chips might be purchased by the palate. Something on the order of $200 for 100,000 if I remember correctly. the bowls I am sure could be had VERY cheaply, or mesh bags would be another very light and inexpensive alternative.Obviously all of it in wholesale, through the AGF, or a similar organization as a funding mechanism.

What I love about these is that the bingo chips work quite well in the short term and fit a normal board. You could fit enough for a full-sized board into those containers. The boards are nice enough for an event unfinished, or with a few minutes of sanding and a quick wipe with polyurethane could be kept to have a small board on hand indefinitely. Cutting, laser engraving, and finishing the boards are really the main expenses because they probably take about 20 minutes each when all is said and done.

The reason I am finishing the project now is that I have inherited a go club (Fresno Go Club) and want to give some of the boards (12) to new members, as well as keep about 8 sets of stones and 16 boards to have for teaching with to promote the club without worrying about losing any of it, keeping the remainder of stones in reserve for when they get lost.





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It looks really nice overall :slight_smile:

Great ideas!

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For context, one reason we are always trying to find cheap options in the U.S. is that these kind of sets just aren’t available. The cheapest options often tend to be really odd, poorly sized sets made by game manufacturers that generally cost something around $30 new. It is often not as easy as you would think to pick up other reasonable options like Jang stones, which have gone up in price a lot lately. Korean professional glass stones or comparable Japanese 10mm ones tend to be over $100 when you can find them.

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It’d be interesting to see where to get these bingo chips (at the correct cheap prize) in each country when no local other alernative is available.
Like in South America, North America, Africa…
In China glass stones have prizes starting low enough (20$ in shops for very correct quality, i know much worse but don’t have the prize).
A set of 360 stones will always cost something if you don’t pick them on the floor and this bingo chips look like to be the cheapest and still convenient set (imagine you have to pick up papers flat stones…). Good choice to equip all the schools of a country.

For boards, can always draw lines on strong paper and then for better quality, different kind of wood is available everywhere. The main concern is more the stones.

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I take it back. After digging through Amazon,I found these:

It’s a 15x15. :disappointed_relieved: I don’t expect a lot of chips either.

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Exactly. And either an oversized board or undersized stones. Is 15x15 a Chinese historical dimension, I wonder?

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There are various very cheap sets like this for wuziqi (5 in a row), usually not convenient for a game of go because not the right size or too less stones

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