Gomoku and Board Game Gifts for the Player Who Owns Everything

A board game is a strange kind of gift. It is a present that only works with a second person, in a room, with the spare hour that neither of you has been reliably finding lately. That is why a shelf of unplayed games is such a common sight, and why the games that survive tend to share one property: they are quick to teach and quick to play.

Gomoku, five in a row, is unusually good on both counts. But the choice of which set to give matters more than it looks, because the right board for one person is the wrong board for another.

Why gomoku makes an unusually good gift

Three reasons, none of them about the game being famous.

It teaches in two minutes. You can explain the whole rule set in a single sentence, which means it actually gets played on the day it is given rather than waiting for a rules evening. It plays in ten minutes, so it fits into a gap rather than competing with dinner. And it needs no luck and no hidden information, which means the person who loses cannot blame the draw — and therefore wants to play again.

Add that a decent wooden board looks like an object rather than a toy, and you have a gift that sits out rather than getting shelved.

Gift ideas by type of player

The single most common gifting failure is buying the board you would want. Match the set to where the receiver will actually use it.

For someone who mostly plays on a screen

This is the most rewarding case, because the upgrade is dramatic. A player who has only ever played online has never experienced the thing that makes the board version different: the whole position visible at once, and an opponent opposite them. Give them a standard 15×15 wooden board with two full stone sets and bowls.

One tip: if you are giving it to someone who has never played, send them the beginner guide first. A gift that arrives with the rules already understood gets played the same evening.

For someone who travels

A folding board, or a magnetic set if they fly or drive with someone who also plays. Folding boards split in half and store the stones inside; magnetic boards survive motion, which normal stones do not. This is the category where a thoughtful gift beats an expensive one, because it respects the constraint the receiver actually has.

For a household with a long commute or a regular motorway journey, a magnetic set is often the most-used game they own. It is also the only type that cannot be ruined by one roundabout.

For a two-person household

Here the constraint is that both people must enjoy it, and the safest route is a board that plays more than one game. A 19×19 Go board plays Go, gomoku and renju, and with the reverse grid printed on some boards you also get the standard 15×15. One gift, three or four games, all two-player.

For the strategy obsessive

Skip the board and buy the book, or buy both. Anyone who already plays seriously will have opinions about boards and will want to choose their own. What they will not have is opening theory in printed form, or a workbook of tactics problems. These are the gifts that get used every week for months, and they cost less than a mid-range board.

One caveat: check that the book is in the notation system they use. Gomoku, renju and Pente theory all use different conventions, and a book in the wrong notation is a book that never gets opened.

Gifts that quietly fail

Worth naming so you can avoid them.

• Enormously elaborate strategy games given to a casual player. The box may be beautiful; if it needs a forty-minute rules explanation it will never be opened.
• Decorative miniature boards. A 9×9 cube-shaped board photographed on a coffee table is an ornament, not a game.
• Sets with no stone bowls. Loose stones in a bag is how a set gets lost one piece at a time and ends up unusable.
• Anything requiring four players for a two-person household — the most common mismatch of all.

How much to spend

Think in bands, not prices, because the market moves. The budget band buys a thin board and adequate plastic stones: a fine gift for a casual household and a perfectly playable game. The mid-range band is where a board looks good enough to leave out and the grid stays readable for years — this is the sweet spot for a gift, because it is the band where the object stops being a toy. The premium band buys thickness and hardwood and stone feel, and is best left to a player who has specifically asked for it.

Two small things that make the gift land

First, learn the rules yourself before you give the board. A gift that comes with a person who will play it immediately is worth more than any upgrade in material. Second, if you are giving to a household rather than a person, give the board that plays the most games — it is the safest version of this decision.

The bottom line

Buy the board that matches where they will play, not the one that looks best in a photograph. A wooden 15×15 set for a screen player, something folding or magnetic for a traveller, a 19×19 board for a two-person household, and a book for anyone who already plays. Those four choices cover almost every gift situation this game can find itself in.