American Go E-Journal
February 19, 2021
The first episode of Counterpart has J. K. Simmons’ character Howard Silk playing go twice, taking black against the same opponent/friend, and losing both times. The board positions look realistic. - Howard A. Landman
February 16, 2021
Cyberpunk 2077 "While playing Cyberpunk 2077 , a recently released RPG videogame, I was doing a mission and came across a game of Go on some barrels in the middle of a street," reports Liam McFadden. "Oddly enough, as you get further…
January 16, 2021
David Matson and Peter Freedman report an article published in issue 94 of Nautilus on understanding evolution through the lens of games, called Playing Go with Darwin . Roy Laird reports on Go's puzzle appearance: "#120 across in the…
December 29, 2020
"The movie Sanjuro has a couple of scenes with a nice go board in view," reports Daniel R. Grayson. Sanjuro is a 1962 black-and-white Japanese jidaigeki film directed by Akira Kurosawa and starring Toshiro Mifune. It is a sequel to…
December 28, 2020
A more-or-less random selection of go-related stuff that somehow we just never got around to publishing this year, but that we don’t want to forget, file or delete. Thanks to everyone who sent us tips and suggestions this year and we…
October 26, 2020
Bart Lipofsky reports that on a recent episode of Jeopardy, aired on October 16, 2020, featured Go about two minutes into the segment. "'Category: 2 letter words - The name of the game seen here,' with a nice view of a stone being…
October 16, 2020
Dave Weimer reports that in Adrian McKinty’s novel, Rain Dogs , the protagonist - a Northern Ireland detective investigating a murder - goes to Finland to interview the prime suspect. When he arrives, he finds the suspect playing Go. In…
September 3, 2020
Andrew Okun reports that Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone's book This is How You Lose the Time War and its inclusion of Go features in a new tor.com article called All Is Fair in Love & Go: Strategy Gaming in This is How You Lose the…
September 2, 2020
Tyler Keithley, president of the Southwest Missouri Go Club, reports that the second episode of The History of Home Narrated by Nick Offerman includes a mention of Go at 48:27 in a transition between explaining the historical importance…
August 23, 2020
Ted Terpstra reports that in Sara Paretsky's 2009 collection, Windy City Blues, there is a 13-page story called "The Takamoku Joseki" beginning on page 246, in which her female private detective, V.I. Warshawski, solves a murder mystery…
July 13, 2020
EJournal reader Mel reports that other readers may be interested in an article from the October issue of EPL (Europhysics Letters) focusing on telling the difference between human and computer players. He notes that the article is not…
June 10, 2020
Larry Russ reports that in this documentary about the Swedish artist and mystic Hilma Af Klint, from about 1:15 to 1:30 at the beginning of the documentary there is a Go board with bowls in the room where the speaker is being filmed.…
June 6, 2020
Adam Anaya reports that "Go is referenced many times in this creatively entertaining novella. 'She decides she would describe it using terms from Go: You place each stone expecting it may do many things. A strike is also a block is also…
May 31, 2020
"There’s an amusing Go reference in the latest Order of the Stick, a Dungeons and Dragons style strip I’ve followed for years," reports Mark Gilston. The storyline involves one of the characters finding a Go stone, whereupon another…
May 11, 2020
"The one minute trailer for the 2018 Chinese historical drama The Rise of the Phoenixes: Season 1 references Go four times," reports Joel Sanet. "The first time shows a beautiful woman looking downward then cuts to a single black stone…
May 2, 2020
Dave Weimer reports that the April 25 th to May 1 st issue of The Economist includes an obituary for mathematician John Horton Conway on page 82, who died at age 82. He taught at Cambridge and Princeton, and was famous for inventing the…
April 2, 2020
The obituary for Philip Anderson , a Nobel prize winning physicist, appeared in the New York Times March after his death on Sunday at the age of 96, report E-Journal readers Dan Kastenholz and Larry Russ. Anderson was a professor at…
March 31, 2020
Carol Geary reports that in the latest episode - Episode 5 - of Devs, a drama miniseries available on Hulu, one of the main characters flashes back to her childhood playing Go with her father. The series stars Sonoya Mizuno as Lily, the…
February 20, 2020
This month, Smithsonian Magazine published an article called Great Board Games of the Ancient World ; naturally Go is included, though towards the end of the article, along with Mancala, Senet, the Royal Game of Ur, Mehen, Backgammon,…
February 17, 2020
Go was part of the February 8-9 grand re-opening of the Seattle Asian Art Museum, following a $56 million renovation of the 1933 art-deco building. On prominent display was a large Chinese decorative screen (artist uncertain) featuring…
January 4, 2020
"In Lecture 24 of her course Brain Myths Exploded (available at The Great Courses.com ) entitled Does Technology Make You Stupid? Indre Viskontas uses Go to support her thesis that the answer to the title question is no," writes Joel…
October 15, 2019
How AI could change science “This interesting article about AI and its applications from the University of Chicago uses AlphaGo as an example,” writes Alicia Seifrid . “For example, when someone programmed the rules for the game of Go…
October 6, 2019
In a September 7th article titled "Battle algorithm," The Economist writes of a "paradox" that may be familiar to readers who analyze their games using Leela Zero and other AIs. "AI might at once penetrate and thicken the fog of war,…
September 10, 2019
A couple of AGA members have recently told us about references to games with stones in science fiction novels. Could these folks be playing Go? Peter Freedman points out that in the science fiction trilogy Chronicle of the Unhewn Throne…
August 14, 2019
“During Go Congress, I visited the Chazen Museum of Art at UW and found this Japanese print,” writes Li Ping. “It is a Samurai standing on top of a Go set.” The woodcut is by Katsukawa Shunshô, who was known for “his widely influential…
August 10, 2019
Former AGA President Allan Abramson spotted games of go in two scenes currently on display in the East wing of the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. Horses and Grooms in the Stable Muromachi period, early 1500s pair of six-panel…
August 7, 2019
"Yanko Design considers itself an online magazine of modern and industrial product design," writes AGA member Morgan Faas. On Yanko Design's website he found a go board design that, in his words, "upgrades the go board into the modern…
July 31, 2019
Go is now among the themes available for classes on Google Classroom, reports Alicia Seifrid. First launched in 2014, Google Classroom is an all-in-one platform for teachers, giving them online tools to post lesson material,…
July 30, 2019
Longtime EJ contributor Janice Kim recently sent along this screenshot "from my favorite anime, Hunter x Hunter . In this longer scene, the King of the Chimera Ants learns Go from books, and takes on the national champion, winning…
July 12, 2019
Hikaru no Go artist Takeshi Obata is the subject of an art opening in Japan, running from July 13- August 12. Thanks to Winston Jen for the photo of the exhibit promo, and the news item on the exhibit. Click here for more info.