There are rumors on the Internet that the BC Card Cup will be no more after only 4 editions. The news is not from any official sources. But looking at past years' schedule, the preliminary tournament should be held in late February. So schedule should normally be available this time of the year. Let's wait and see. It is such a pity that many sponsors are driven by pure commercial interests. This is definitely not good for Go. We've already lost the Toyota Cup and the Fujitsu Cup.
This would be very bad news since it certainly is one of the most interesting tournaments in the world, always offering us plenty of good games to study...hope this is just an hoax...
It will be very sad indeed, as the preliminaries(ama + pro) and the main tournament with 64 players provided lots of games between the rising stars and the top players.
Dear Mace, do you know any news about BC Card Cup and Bailing Cup? These two competitions will be discontinued, or some hope for new editions?
It looks like the BC Card cup is indeed discontinued. Some background information I read from the Internet: back in 2001 BC Credit Card was taken over by another company called KT. KT is sponsoring another Go tournament Olleh Cup. So it probably doesn't make economic sense for the combined company to sponsor two Go tournaments. However because Lee Sedol managed beat Gu Li in the 3rd BC Card Cup final, the company enjoyed very good publicity. So the tournament survived another year. It is reported that KT may be interested in sponsoring a brand new international tournament but no detail is available at this time.