Seems like a Goldilocks zone. More intricate that 9x9 without the full commitment of a 19x19
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Yup, 13x13 is really nice âmidwayâ board, i also like it a lot ^___^
I think thats also its downfall thoâŚLike, if someone wants to play a game on small board, they usually choose 9x9, but if they wanna play on larger board they just play on the ânormalâ 19x19 xD
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I also think 13x13 offers a unique experience not shared by either 9x9 or 19x19
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âMiddle child syndromeâ
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I like both 9x9 and 13x13. And struggle a lot playing 19x19.
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âWorst of both worldsâ 
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I used to like 13x13 a lot. But these days I either want a âquickâ game or a ârealâ game 
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At least the times Iâm online, for my trash-tier rating, it seems a lot easier (at least on OGS) to matchmake a 13x13 game than 9x9!
I think I enjoy it more than 9x9, Iâm just not built for the super-quick time rules it usually comes with.
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You can also ask why not with 11x11, or 15x15, or 17x17. And in reality, we did sometimes teach entry and low kyu rank (from 30k to 21k) classes for them to practice and play on 13x13 and 15x15 boards (which are both sizes relatively easy to buy in bulk here in CJKT). And we move on to 19x19 above 20k classes
And historically, we see unearthed Go boards of various sizes from 11x11 all the way to 19x19, and from records, we even saw records of 21x21 boards, even boards not using an even number of lines (or not square). We also have fairly credible sources indicating that Go boards at some points in the early 1st millennium seemed to favor 17x17 board using 289 intersections. Also, variation such as ancient Korean rules used 17x17 board size with many fixed starting stones, so the size in some regions definitely didnât use 19x19 as the default.
As to why the 19x19 became the most popular ones, it is very hard to say for sure. And we do see other boardgames within East Asian cultures didnât stick to a certain type of board. However, history is often a combination of accident with some logic people invented to explain them. Many old Go texts started with Go with 360 stones (they usually donât count the tengen) akin to the number of days in a year, 90 intersections in one quarter, like seasons, and 72 edge intersections like an ancient Chinese âweekâ (ĺ, a period of 5 days in the ancient Chinese calendar). However, these types of texts only showed up close to the end of the 1st millennium, around the Song Dynasty, hence it cannot be said, this is the âreasonâ for players to âchooseâ a 19x19 board size (more like Taoism started to become more and more popular and sip into Chinese culture, people associated numbers to everything). And from the real Go board transmitted to Japan (Japanese record in the 7th to 8th century, but in reality probably much earlier, maybe the 4th or 5th century or earlier), we know they are 19x19, matching the record we saw in the Tang Dynasty China. So at some point in the early 1st millennium, Go board sizes for âserious gamesâ seemed to already favor 19x19, but not completely eliminate other board sizes in local variations. And due to the cultural dominance of the Tang Dynasty, and the following Japanese Go that led to modern Go also using 19x19 for competitions (but they still produce and use smaller boards concurrently). This has become the dominant one (sort of like the Qwerty keyboard layout, the major manufacturing process started to produce elaborate and highly decorative Go boards also started around the Tang Dynasty, which some them still survived to this day)
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Time to bring out this post again.
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Fantastic! (so was the history!)
Though, as the commenters on the article point out, it may be
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Iâm wondering why not 10x10 or 12x12. Is it so important to have a Tengen? To prevent mirroring perhaps?
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This is likely the best explanation I could have hoped for. Vaguely reminiscent of the âyouâll understand when youâre olderâ we would hear as a child.
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Third position for the board size/games played. Not that bad for popularity (1/3 of the 9x9 quantity)
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Statistically, is 13x13 less popular on OGS? How much less?
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Why did you have it on OGS? Its usage?
@PRHG The swimming pool and âless favorite childâ 13x13 to Mother 19x19 is so funny.
Then, this child sank to the bottom of the pool?
I can understand the first 2 lines of your explanation, while all A & B contain N, and K contain 9, 13, 19. However, what does the last line mean?
@Counting_Zenist May I know what âCJKTâ stand for?
A and B are free to be any natural number (N is generally used to denote the natural numbers, i.e. 1,2, 3,4⌠and sometimes zero), while K can only be 9, 13, or 19. The ⨠symbol means inclusive or. The final line says A must not be equal to K, or B must not be equal to K, or both must not be equal to K.
So the whole thing can be read as: board sizes of dimensions AxB, where A and B can be any number so long as they are not both 9, 13, or 19.
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China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan.
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Read the link from @Groin comment
At the time of the statistics (4 years ago), there were
12.7m games for 19x19
10.6m games for 9x9
3.4m games for 13x13
And other odd board sizes, but not in the same scale (less than tens of thousands combined). So fewer 13x13 comparably, but still huge in absolute numbers.
As to why 13x13, it is one of the board sizes you can easily play on a standard 19x19 board without buying another one (played from hoshi/star points to start points are exactly 13x13, while one quarter of the 19x19 board, excluding the tengen line is 9x9)
And thanks for @Maharani for helping explain the CJKT abbreviation.
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simply because 13x13 canât give level of satisfaction like 9x9 (fast pace, life and death heavy), and 19x19 (strategic, deep thinking, art of joseki).
however we can play 13x13 to teach or bully a newbie.
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