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 Dec 20th NYT crossword puzzle: “Piece in the game go” – five letters, I wonder what it could be?”
Michael Goerss found two references to weiqi in 1636: The China Venture by Eric Flint & Iver P. Cooper. “A character showing photographs in China (p. 188), ‘Here’s a print of you and your father playing weiqi.’ And in the epilogue (p. 426) while mentioning an omen in a letter, ‘This happened just as I was playing the board game Weiqi . . . with the Beijing minister of war.’
Goerss, along with reader Liam McFadden, also reported on the appearance of Go in the new video game Cyberpunk 2077. “Oddly enough, as you get further away from the board, the texture switches from showing a 19×19 board to a 10×10,” says McFadden. Goerss noticed this as well; “While the positions look like reasonable board positions, the board has ten lines. However, stones are placed midway between intersections, too, which would make the board 19×19. Maybe the graphics for a true 19×19 board were too hard?”
EJournal and Buzzfeed reader David Bogie reports on this list at Buzzfeed, book #28: “If you liked watching “The Queen’s Gambit”, you should read “The Girl Who Played Go”, by Shan Sa.”
-photos courtesy of Liam McFadden
