Saturday, July 29, 2006

YMI introduces their slate and shell stones

First off, I wasn't able to make it to the NorCal Open. The ChiyoClan opted for lunch at The Elephant Bar in Emeryville and we didn't drive to Japantown. I'm sorry that I wasn't able to meet-up with some of you.

My small consolation was that The Elephant Bar makes a very nice cheesesteak sandwich.


YMI's Slate and Shell Stones from Ogawa Goishi

wmcguire93 alerted folks on GoDiscussions.com that Yellow Mountain Imports had brought in their slate and shell stones.

Image of their Jitsuyo-grade stones

Image of their Snow-grade stones

An examination of their box photos revealed the name Ogawa Goishi (小川碁石店). This vendor is among those listed in the 2005 Hyuga Go Stone festival and their stones are imported into China by the Yunzi company. They currently do not seem to have a website of their own.

Here's a sampling of prices for Japanese Size 36 (10.1mm) Jitsuyo (utility) grade stones.
Based on this information, it looks like Kuroki Goishi Ten may still be able to offer a better final price if you take their least expensive surface shipping and wait 6-8 weeks for delivery. Air freighting your stones might still be less expensive than YMI's US$390 and Samarkand's US$409.

Still, this means that you have more options open to you when shopping for real slate and shell. Keep an eye on YMI's eBay auction store in case they offer any of these stones there at a reduced starting price.


Fuseki Quiz 15/20

White to play. I chose B immediately. Black looks
too strong at the top and the bottom and B struck me
as an urgent defensive move.


Scoring of last weekend's Fuseki Quiz 14/20
(Jump to the last quiz!)
  • A = 10, If you consider the sequence to 7 in Diagram 1 below, you will see that Black's profit is pretty big. For White to press Black against the left side by playing D4 wouldn't be good because Black could connect-up on the left side.
  • B = 8
  • C = 2
  • D = 4
  • E = 6
Diagram 1

posted by ChiyoDad @ 5:44 PM   2 comments

2 Comments:

At 11:53 AM, July 31, 2006, Blogger Maria said...

E-bar's food is really really good...

And go stone prices are really really depressing. So pretty though.

 
At 2:01 AM, August 01, 2006, Blogger Martin said...

I have 10.1 mm stones from kuroki goishi, bought 3 years ago. I chose air mail and didn't really trust the whole thing, but everything worked out nicely.
The stones are nice and also do not look or feel too fat. 10.1 is a nice size, but in my next life I will buy a bit thinner ones. I found that thinner stones (say around 9mm) are just a bit more handy for regular play and real use. And will still look very good.

 

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