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Go Spotting: Last Resort

"Go was just featured on a U.S. TV series!" writes Alicia Seifrid. The game was featured in the ABC series "Last Resort," episode 10 ("Blue Water"), which aired last Thursday, December 13. "The series is about a renegade U.S. submarine crew on an island in the Indian Ocean," explains Seifrid. "In this episode, a Chinese diplomat named Zheng visits the crew offering humanitarian aid. He meets with Captain Chaplin, who is wary of what strings might come attached with the aid. Zheng offers Chaplin his grandfather's go board as a gift. When Chaplin says he prefers chess, Zheng says 'In chess, the victor is the one who annihilates his opponent's armies. In weiqi or go, victory goes to the one who can control the most territory with the fewest armies.'" Later in the episode, they play a game against each other, and Zheng catches Chaplin in a trap, "exactly what Chaplin fears might be the real-life situation if he accepts Zheng's aid," says Seifrid. She sent along this screencap of the board during their game, noting that "Chaplin is black and Zheng is white."