My Go Teacher: Michael Sherman

This is the sixth and final entry in my series of posts about my go teachers. Well, it is the last assuming I don't add a new go teacher, but that is a distinct possibility.

I first heard about Michael Sherman, AKA Mikito, through his involvement with the MGA Discord. 

Mikito has been teaching  a DDK class for the MGA for quite a while now on Monday evenings. Don't let the DDK category keep you away from the class if you are SDK. About half of the people who attend,  including myself, are actually SDK. The class is free and open to anyone who wants to attend. It occurs at 6:00 PM EST on zoom, and you will find the zoom link for the class posted in the classes channel of the MGA Discord shortly before the class begins.

Recently Mikito has expanded his DDK class offerings to Tuesday evenings as well. Those classes also occur on zoom. The Tuesday classes are a part of the MGA virtual go club meeting that takes place every Tuesday night. David Kahn, who organizes that meeting, has hopes of expanding the meetings to the point where they become a 24/7 virtual go club with face-to-face discussions and breakout rooms for small group participation. NAOL participants who play their games at the default time of Tuesday at 8:00 PM EST are welcome to play in a breakout room with their opponent.

Mikito offers a structured class on Tuesday nights where he takes some games of players who usually attend. He creates multiple choice questions about positions in those games. He usually offers three choices for the next move.  He will select about three to five positions per game and cycle through the participants asking them to say the best move from among the choices and to explain why is the best choice.  Sometimes he asks for the worst move. 

On Mondays Michael offers a less structured class where students can suggest videos to watch together and discuss.  Sometimes we will look at a game someone brings to show.

I've told Mikito that he can stalk my OGS profile for class material whenever he wants, and he often brings forth one of my games with multiple choice questions for the Tuesday night DDK class.

In addition to the work that Michael does teaching for the MGA he also offers private lessons. If you are interested in private lessons please contact him on the MGA Discord where he is Mikito.

Mikito is shown below playing go. He is on the left in the front.

Now for my usual Go Content:

It was a very active week with nearly 29 hours spent on Go Activity. Over 11 of those hours were spent on Live Play.

I played 14 games last week. All of them were league games. I spent an average of 48 minutes per game.

Early in the week I decided to get competitive in the BenKyo League so I really packed in a large number of games in the last four days of the month.  I'll report on my results next week.