Gomoku
Gomoku, also called "Five in a Row", is an abstract strategy board game. It is traditionally played with Go pieces (black and white stones) on a Go board, using 15×15 of the 19×19 grid intersections. Because pieces are not moved or removed from the board, Gomoku may also be played as a paper-and-pencil game. The game is known in several countries under different names.
Go (game)
The traditional Japanese "goban" is between thick and has legs; it sits on the floor (see picture). It is preferably made from the rare golden-tinged Kaya tree ("Torreya nucifera"), with the very best made from Kaya trees up to 700 years old. More recently, the related California Torreya ("Torreya californica") has been prized for its light color and pale rings as well as its reduced expense and more readily available stock. The natural resources of Japan have been unable to keep up with the enormous demand for the slow-growing Kaya trees; both "T. nucifera" and "T. californica" take many hundreds of years to grow to the necessary size, and they are now extremely rare, raising the price of such equipment tremendously. As Kaya trees are a protected species in Japan, they cannot be harvested until they have died. Thus, an old-growth, floor-standing Kaya "goban" can easily cost in excess of $10,000 with the highest-quality examples costing more than $60,000.