Games of black and white

It is, I trust, not a spoiler to say that the board game Go appears in the movie “Knives Out,” which I saw at an early screening last night in Murfreesboro. (I highly recommend the movie and urge you to see it as soon as you can, before someone spoils its many twists and turns). The game was clearly shown in the movie’s first trailer:

I have never played Go. I did, however, learn to play Othello at about the same time I became aware of Go, and I believe some of my friends in college played Go.

I love Othello, and in my younger years, the late 80s and early 90s, I was a member of the US Othello Association and played in several Othello tournaments, in Nashville; Huntsville, Alabama; and twice in Fairfax, Virginia. I wasn’t all that great, but I did win the Rookie Prize at my first tournament.

Photo by Perline (Creative Commons license)

One of those Virgnia tournaments resulted in the most memorable Independence Day I have ever spent. I was crashing in the home of the couple who were hosting the tournament, which was held on the Fourth. After the tournament, one of the players (the winner, in fact) invited the couple out to dinner…