Wednesday, July 12, 2006

YMI brings in the Dragon floor gobans


Peregrine was the first to alert the folks at GoDiscussions.com that Yellow Mountain Imports had brought in their Dragon floor gobans. Pong had mentioned his plans to add these to YMI's inventory when he was traveling in China months ago. These bamboo floor gobans are retail priced at US$950 and weigh over 70 pounds.

I have, however, already seen one at auction on eBay at a starting bid of US$599.

The detail is impressive and you can see some images of how these were manufactured at the Yunnan Weiqi Factory from a previous post.

The feet are shaped as a combinations of lion heads and claws. They make quite an aggressive statement.


Two other products make their debut

YMI has also added Wild Jujube Bowls for US$25. These are smaller than their regular jujube bowls and are best suited for stones that are Size 33 or smaller. I'm thinking that they might be suitable for the traditional single-convex Yunzi stones.

I'm still awaiting the arrival of their Go Seigen (aka Wu Qingyuan) style Rosewood bowls for larger stones. These should be rather impressive and will go well with their Super Yunzi.

They are now also offering a portable magnetic roll-up set for US$35. The description for this product says that the mat will not curl-up (like some vinyl mats do).


Hoping to Attend: The Northern California Open Tournament


The AGA-rated Northern California Open Tournament will be held this month in San Francisco's Japantown in the Union Bank Hospitality Room. I'm hoping to attend this one.

Jacob Brown provided me with these details.
  • Date: July 29-30, 2006
  • Fees: $25 for youth under 18, $30 for adults
  • Registration begins at 9am on Saturday morning.
  • First round begins at 10 am
  • There will be five rounds, three on Saturday and two on SundayThere will be one hour sudden death for each player.
I'm assuming that they will have enough boards for all participants but I'll be happy to bring my set if they need any spares (or for some side-games). I'm hoping to have my GoBox before then so I can transport my gear with ease.

5 Comments:

At 12:18 AM, July 13, 2006, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'm ordering the roll-up go board and I'll play with that a bit. Amazing how hard it is to find something decent you can take with you to play go..

 
At 10:29 AM, July 13, 2006, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I just purchased one of the portable sets along with the GoBox. I emailed YMI asking if they had any of the old magnetic sets left, they said no but said that the new portable set is much nicer than the old magnetic set, so I figured why not give it a shot.

 
At 1:32 PM, July 13, 2006, Blogger Unknown said...

Good luck in the tourney!
Give you a real chance to test out the results of your studying. In UK, we find that KGS grades are significantly tougher than BGA ranks, so it will be interesting to see how you perform.
Also of interest will be the attendence, again in the UK, numbers seem to vary between 35-50 contestents.

 
At 3:54 PM, July 13, 2006, Anonymous Anonymous said...

The new bamboo goban seems much nicer than the old bamboo boards YMI sold. I'm espically impressed with the feet. Personally I'm not a big fan of the ornate chinese boards. I prefer the simple Japanese gobans. I wonder what a Japanese style bamboo board would look like.

I also like their new magnetic travel set. It seems well designed. YMI is rapidly passing Samarkand as the best source of inexpensive quality go gear. :)

 
At 4:25 PM, July 13, 2006, Blogger ChiyoDad said...

Hello folks!

If I didn't already have a magnetic goban, I'd be getting the YMI one.

"... wonder what a Japanese style bamboo board would look like."

Don't think there's such an animal.

If I do make it to the NorCal Open, I'll be bringing my camera for pics.

 

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