In the Dark? International Tournaments and Publications

The Toyota Tour or Toyota European Go Tour is a grand prix circuit of 12 events. It started in 1999, replacing the Fujitsu Grand Prix of Europe. Each year there are five regular major events and other events join in with a two or three year rotation. Prize money is provided to each event and points are earned towards the grand prix prizes, which are awarded after the final event, which is the Paris Tournament. Leaders in the points can get subsidy to attend the finals, especially if they are from east Europe or are juniors. From 2004 it was also supported by co-sponsor IGS-PandaNet and became the Toyota - IGS-PandaNet European Go Tour.

This tournament was held each December from 1993 to 2002 at the European Go and Cultural Centre, Amsterdam. Previously qualification was from the Fujitsu Grand Prix, but changed to be earned by places at certain Fujitsu Qualifying tournaments or by rating and seeding. In 2000 it was expanded from a 16-player knock out to 20 players. Winners have been Rob van Zeijst, Guo Juan and Catalin Taranu, who then got to play in the World Fujitsu Cup against professional players. From 2003 the European players at the World Fujitsu were selected at the European Masters event.

The Ing Cup was first held in 1990 and since the death of its instigator is known as the Ing Chang-Ki Memorial Tournament. It is a six round Swiss for 24 top European or Europe-based Asian players, selected by strength, past performance and a country's results in the European Championship. Held in March, alternate years have tended to be held at the European Go and Cultural Centre; in between it has visited several different countries including France, Czechia, Romania and Finland.

"Go Weekly" is a weekly newspaper available on news stands on railway stations and elsewhere in Japan. It is published from an office at the main Nihon Ki-in building in Tokyo. Titles of monthly magazines have included "Kido" and "Igo Club". Current titles include publications of varying standard from the Nihon Ki-in, NHK Television and others. "Monthly Go World" is a Japanese language magazine that should not be confused with the quarterly English language magazine with a similar title "Go World".

The "Ranka" yearbook is published by the International Go Federation for the purposes of spreading international Go. It was first published, in English, in 1985 and its main aim is to reports on the World Amateur Go Championships (including games). In some years reports from each country were included but this has now stopped. The "Kido Yearbook" has for some years been properly known as the "Nihon Ki-in Yearbook", since the "Kido" magazine stopped. It contains lists of professional players, clubs and results from Japan. There are also photographs of winners and most importantly several hundred Japanese game records from professional and top amateur competitions. Similar publications are available for Korean Baduk and Chinese Weiqi years, in appropriate languages.

This page is one of a series of In The Dark articles.