There is an old dad joke, "Why can't a leopard hide?" The punchline is: "Because he's always spotted". Just like the leopard in that dumb joke—the game of GO also cannot hide—it is always spotted! It might be a dad joke, but I am a dad, so the math checks out on that.
All GO players get excited to “spot” our game depicted in movies, TV and other pop culture moments. As a college professor, I once gave a “guest lecture” on the topic of chess and GO appearing in movies, etc. The gist of it is, when one of these games appear in a show, it usually metaphorically let’s the audience know that whatever character it is is, shall we say, smart. In the classic move Casablanca, the first appearance of Rick (the Humphrey Bogart character) is him studying a chess board. The audience instantly knows Rick is smart.
You get this same function with GO. One famous example of the game of GO being used in a movie to communicate genius-level characters is of course Pi (1998). Two super-genius mathematicians play GO as they make esoteric conversation about math, the universe, and everything. All that was missing was the number “42.” Oh, the other thing that was missing was good GO playing.
To explain what was not good, let me give you another but maybe not-as-famous example: they both have the same “error.” There was an episode of the TV show JAG (S2 Ep10: “The Game of Go” 1997) when the hero plays the villain-of-the-week in a game of GO. Of course, the hero wins, that’s fine. But, how does the show visually depict his victory in the game? By having him score a large capture. This is visually effective, I’ll give you that. The same basic thing happens in Pi, too. Huge captures, used to visually denote victory.
(A beautiful but technically nonsensical image of a GO board from the film Pi (1998) )
Fine, except any Go player of even level 9kyu or better knows that a large capture doesn’t mean you win. Not at all. Not only can losing a group be a tactical maneuver that actually helps you win—but also, losing a group can often mean doubling down on a more aggressive style to try and come back. Or, in the very least—capturing a group like that is typically gote (a move that requires no local response) thus giving the player who just got captured sente—that is, initiative to do whatever they want on their next move. Having sente itself can be valuable enough to keep playing. And finally—if a game is coming down to a huge semiai (a capturing race) that will decide the game, the person who is about to lose will likely/probably/maybe resign the moment they realize their stones will be captured. Thus, there would be no dramatic removing of the stones, just a sad person going “I resign.” In Pi and JAG my own reading of their boards is that the loser could have resigned much earlier than the capture.
This raises the meta-question: maybe these players aren’t as good as they shows are implying. They are supposed to be geniuses but maybe they are really Dunning-Kruger 20-kyus who just think they’re all that. Oh the irony!!
It has been reported that in the making of the first couple of X-men movies with Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen, when Prof X and Magneto played chess, they actually brought in a chess grand master to help them depict genius-level play on the board. I am sure shows must exist which do this for GO—but it’s hard to believe Pi or JAG did this. This is why if I make a list of top 5 GO-spotting moments, I do not include the ones in which supposed geniuses play GO like 22 kyus.
My two favorite GO-spotting moments are A Beautiful Mind and Arrested Development. What I love about the GO scene in A Beautiful Mind is that when depicting genius Nash learning GO, he of course sucked. Just because he was good at math doesn’t mean he automatically can play GO well. I loved that. And, in the season1finale of Arrested Development., "Let 'Em Eat Cake" (S1E22), a scene shows Maeby playing GO with Annyong. They are just casually playing, in the background. Annyong is Korean, so it has an Asian connotation, but the scene itself does not call attention to the GO or his being asian. They’re no geniuses; they’re not exotic. Just two kids (well, teenagers) playing a board game. It is so natural, who can not love it.
My top 5 list—if I were honest, would be nothing but scenes from Hikaru no Go. That show is so good, it actually changed my life. (I did tell you I was nerd, right? So don’t act surprised.). On the other hand, a famous show that is explicitly about GO hardly seems like GO-spotting, does it! That would be like including Star Wars on a list of "star spotting" or "wars" spotting. So, Hikaru no Go has to go into its own category. Otherwise, GO-spotting lists would be nigh on impossible.
Rabbit holes and digressions have made this little essay longer than expected—now you know what’s it like to be one of my students. I never stop talking. So for your sanity and mine, and without further ado, here is my personal top 5 GO-spotting moments in pop culture. Please share yours in the comments below.
1. Arrested Development—Maeby and Annyong play in the background
2. A Beautiful Mind—Nash struggles to play
3. Kamisato Ayaka plays go in the video game Genshin Impact
4. Random NPCs play GO on the streets of Night City in the video game Cyberpunk 2077
5. Knives Out—fun murder mystery in which GO is featured