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On a whim, a week ago I decided to sign up for the 16th season of In-seong Hwang’s American Yunguseng Dojang (AYD). This insei style online school came up in several conversations at US Go Congress and much of the sentiment expressed was very positive. After my fantastic experience at the US Go Congress, AYD’s round robin tournament format with longer game time controls combined with lectures and weekly reviews really resonates with me. I signed up to try it out for a month with the intention of sticking around for the whole season if it goes well.

It wasn’t clear that I would be able to get in since AYD is structured around leagues and each league must have at least six players. When I signed up there wasn’t quite enough people to fill out an additional league. Still I was given access to the video lectures which I started going through and I must say I’m very impressed by their quality. So I crossed my fingers and guessed that in the worst case I could stick around as an observer for the season.

However, just yesterday I got an email saying I made it in! I’ll definitely be writing about my first month in AYD here so stay tuned.