Toukeigakusha

Update at the end of 2010: (score and position differences relative to the end of 2009; Hakuho's 15 wins in Kyushu include the kettei-sen; I assigned Harumafuji his year's average of 2388 points for Kyushu to make up for his fusen, otherwise he would have dropped to position 10 with a score of 1844 points; "G"=gino-sho, "S"=shukun-sho, "K"=kanto-sho, "#"=gino-sho plus kanto-sho) Pos. Score (Diff) Wins Sekitori Hatsu*5 Haru*6 Natsu*7 Nagoya*8 Aki*9 Kyushu*10 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- _1.( 1) 4480 (+ 64) 87 Hakuho 3399/12 4655/15 4509/15 4495/15 4725/15 4662/15 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- _2.( 5) 2904 (+ 648) 64 Baruto 3591/12# 4112/14G 2575/10 1878/ 8 2565/ 9 3193/11 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- _3.( 4) 2377 (- 301) 56 Kotooshu 2468/ 9 2205/10 2378/ 9 2722/10 2826/10 1755/ 8 _4.( 9) 2375 (+ 441) 52 Kaio 2445/ 9 2026/ 8 2330/ 9 1654/ 6 2153/ 8 3356/12 _5.( 3) 2375 (- 652) 47 Harumafuji 2610/10 2181/10 2324/ 9 2818/10 2005/ 8 [2388*] ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- _6.( 8) 2245 (+ 276) 50 Kisenosato 2370/ 9 2374/ 9 2343/ 8 1571/ 7 1806/ 7 2972/10S _7.(10) 2207 (+ 355) 48 Kotoshogiku 1405/ 6 2654/10 2506/ 9 1466/ 5 2887/ 9 2112/ 9 _8.(18) 2156 (+ 948) 53 Tochiozan 832/ 8 2464/11 1739/ 7 2555/ 9 3143/11G 1716/ 7 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- _9.(12) 1962 (+ 529) 46 Aminishiki 1963/11G 2436/ 8 1060/ 5 1489/ 6 2446/ 8 2250/ 8 10.( 6) 1950 (- 161) 46 Kakuryu 1654/ 7 1005/ 6 1844/ 6 2493/11 2643/ 9 1683/ 7 11.(14) 1766 (+ 411) 43 Tochinoshin 616/ 5 1751/ 9 2716/ 8K 1596/ 6 2405/ 9 1247/ 6 12.(26) 1608 (+ 610) 45 Aran 1243/10 175/ 1 2016/12K 3040/11K 1980/ 7 884/ 4 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 13.(52) 1379 (+1360) 43 Hakuba 1123/ 9 915/ 8 2459/10 1132/ 4 1939/ 8 724/ 4 14.(20) 1379 (+ 229) 43 Homasho 1061/ 9 1574/ 9 0/ 0 1480/11K 1402/ 7 2285/ 7 15.(16) 1345 (+ 45) 47 Toyonoshima 2489/ 8 1026/ 6 1096/ 5 0/ 0 98/14 3337/14# 16.(28) 1345 (+ 454) 44 Asasekiryu 843/ 6 1747/10 2330/ 9 659/ 4 1560/ 9 1020/ 6 17.(13) 1283 (- 123) 40 Kyokutenho 1296/ 8 345/ 3 1601/ 9 1588/ 7 638/ 4 1951/ 9 18.(53) 1218 (+1211) 46 Kitataiki 1036/ 9 1765/10 1492/ 7 943/ 6 1307/ 9 928/ 5 19.(19) 1155 (- 50) 44 Yoshikaze 1026/ 6 548/ 5 1185/ 9 622/ 5 1681/11K 1514/ 8 20.(--) 1145 ( new ) 48 Tokusegawa 72/ 9 948/ 8 1198/ 9 1155/ 8 1161/ 6 1741/ 8 21.(17) 1138 (- 73) 41 Tokitenku 844/ 5 1495/10 1440/ 8 1902/ 8 447/ 2 869/ 8 22.(15) 1062 (- 278) 43 Takekaze 1482/ 6 673/ 5 1084/ 8 610/ 6 1855/12K 720/ 6 23.(35) 1050 (+ 329) 42 Tamawashi 1472/ 8 1061/ 5 234/ 3 812/ 7 1149/10 1503/ 9 24.(34) 980 (+ 235) 40 Wakanosato 1262/ 9 771/ 6 672/ 6 1666/ 9 810/ 5 786/ 5 25.(30) 963 (+ 171) 38 Kokkai 792/ 5 1151/10 747/ 3 894/ 8 1565/ 8 599/ 4 26.(40) 937 (+ 423) 43 Mokonami 587/ 6 1104/ 9 1172/ 8 1063/ 8 814/ 5 859/ 7 27.(39) 908 (+ 393) 43 Tosayutaka 1194/10 648/ 3 998/ 7 839/ 8 795/ 6 1014/ 9 28.(11) 904 (- 839) 42 Goeido 1845/ 7 750/ 2 1106/ 9 0/ 0 96/12 1837/12 29.(33) 846 (+ 97) 43 Shimotori 797/ 8 460/ 5 1029/10 856/ 6 956/ 8 869/ 6 30.(24) 813 (- 247) 43 Takamisakari 758/ 7 813/ 7 832/ 8 891/ 9 555/ 4 995/ 8 31.(21) 780 (- 354) 41 Miyabiyama 916/ 5 1593/10 1216/ 5 0/ 0 72/12 1178/ 9 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 32.( 7) 688 (-1290) 19 Kotomitsuki 320/ 1 2078/ 9 2416/ 9 0/ 0 0/ 0 0/ 0 33.(45) 664 (+ 415) 46 Kimurayama 21/ 7 22/11 720/ 7 699/ 8 1198/ 8 825/ 5 34.(--) 587 ( new ) 42 Gagamaru 0/ 0 40/ 8 70/10 597/ 5 1135/10 1069/ 9 35.(25) 550 (- 480) 26 Kakizoe 1280/ 6 1027/ 7 1059/ 7 418/ 3 157/ 3 0/ 0 36.(36) 435 (- 197) 32 Tochinonada 410/ 5 60/10 285/ 3 0/ 0 933/ 8 678/ 6 37.( 2) 433 (-2887) 13 Asashoryu 3899/13 0/ 0 0/ 0 0/ 0 0/ 0 0/ 0 38.(32) 422 (- 363) 23 Bushuyama 306/ 2 229/ 4 0/ 0 757/ 8 732/ 6 346/ 3 39.(--) 413 ( new ) 30 Sokokurai 0/ 0 0/ 0 8/ 8 32/ 8 1117/ 8 822/ 6 40.(49) 403 (+ 334) 32 Koryu 329/ 4 0/ 0 430/ 5 18/ 9 402/ 6 973/ 8 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 41.(37) 399 (- 232) 42 Toyohibiki 1629/12K 468/ 4 959/ 8 0/ 0 21/ 7 11/11 Baruto went way beyond compensating for Chiyotaikai & Kotomitsuki, he replaced Harumafuji as the yokozuna's only serious yusho contender. But the biggest surprise amongst the ozeki may actually be Kaio, scoring even higher than kettei-sen participant Toyonoshima in Kyushu. Amongst the lower sanyaku, Kisenosato and Kotoshogiku appear to be more stable now with scores similar to those of the ozeki and none significantly below 1500 points; Tochiozan made the biggest leap forward here. Tochinoshin and Aran have become sanyaku candidates but are lacking consistency for the time being. Hakuba and Kitataiki have made stunning improvements within the "makuuchi regulars"; Takamisakari shows us how to stay in the top division with a minimum score. Amongst the newcomers, Tokusegawa appears to have established himself as makuuchi regular now; it remains to be seen whether he can repeat his Kyusho result though. While Wakanosato had no problems staying up there in 2010 a handful of sekitori have now fallen out of the 40 due to dropping to juryo: Tamanoshima, Shotenro, and Hokutoriki. The "gamblers" have all fallen in this ranking (having missed two makuuchi basho) but Toyonoshima's Kyusho score shows what this guy is capable of. Goeido didn't have a single 2000 points score this year and would have dropped out of the "meat grinder crowd" anyway. Toyohibiki, kanto-sho winner in hatsu, ended up in position 41 for the year 2010. Tochinoshin's kanto-sho in natsu based on a mere 8 wins for 2716 points included wins over four ozeki plus one sekiwake; Homasho's 'cheap' kanto-sho in Nagoya based on 11 wins for 1480 points included only one win over an opponent higher than maegashira 9.

As there are so many wonderful discussions and statistics here, I would like to share an idea and get comments on its weaknesses and potential improvements. This posting will be a bit long, and I warn those who aren't that interested in numbers they likely won't find that much of value here. The way an ozumo basho works, the winner is decided by the number of wins, regardless of their opponents. In reality this doesn't turn out to be a problem as e. g. genki maegashiras (like currently Yoshikaze) going into double-digit territory have to face each other plus sanyaku or even ozeki opponents during the final days and are thus not likely to actually win a tournament. Still, a weaker sekitori may win a sansho or even jun-yusho without beating more than one really tough opponents while the sanyaku guys may have to beat much stronger opponents to even get their kachikoshi. So I'm wondering whether the performance of different sekitori within a basho (or between different bashos for the same sekitori who owns different banzuke ranks there, in order to observe their development) can be more reasonably compared than by simply counting wins. Doing so would require to set up a model of what "performance" means, which might be anything but universally valid of course. The model that I'm messing around with does have its flaws and it seems to work best for a certain part of the banzuke that I'm interested in most, being the mid maegashira to ozeki range. It probably undervalues the lower maegashiras for the sake of simplicity and based on the observation that outstanding performances in this area appear to be rare anyway. It also completely ignores the difference between kachikoshi and makekoshi by treating wins only based on opponents' quality, as well as traffic jam situations or sure demotions. The idea behinds this would be that sekitori are supposed to do "motivated sumo" in all situations, so I have no problem with 'overvaluing' those who actually do just that. What am I trying to do? I want to value a win over an opponent based on that opponent. What's relevant for a sekitori's value? My model suggests: Rank multiplied by genkiness. Rank is being expressed by banzuke rank, genkiness is expressed by the number of wins of a sekitori in the current basho. (I pondered making the value somehow recursive, i. e. considering that sekitori's opponents as well but that would make the whole procedure a lot more complex while not changing that much as the opponents basically depend on the rank anyway and the genkiness will usually vary a lot more than good or bad luck of opponents selection.) Simply counting wins of a sekitori for his genkiness means that a sekitori with 12 wins would be four times as genki as a sekitori with 3 wins which might then be seen as too much of a difference. I wonder whether to add a constant amount of 1-3 victories for each sekitori as to make the differences smaller; this would downplay the genkiness factor relatively to the ranking factor. Then again, 3 as well as 12 wins are rare events, and the factor of two between 5 as 10 wins isn't that different from the factor of two between the strongest and weakest opponent's rank for high maegashira (see below). For ozekis (who face only the top sekitori anyway) the genkiness of their opponents is a bit more important. My current model also makes a win against a sekitori who retires early in a basho of very little value, sometimes even worthless (Chiyotaikai O1E/0 in Hatsu). This may occasionally be unfair if said sekitori got an injury during the basho, a win prior to this injury against the still healthy sekitori would then become undervalued. But not knowing details about injuries in general and trying to keep my model simple for the time being I have to live with this effect. During 2008 this effect was most relevant for wins over Asashoryu who dropped out of competition with 3 resp. 5 wins in two bashos, and in both cases a kinboshi would be valued no better than a victory against a genki middle-class maegashira. Which brings up the value of rank. Keeping things simple I value the Y1E with 50 points and then each successive rank 1 point lower (regardless of participation in a basho, I don't upgrade lower ranks because of this as the sekitori don't just get stronger because some higher-ranked opponents are missing). So the rank with lowest non-negative value would be J4W with 1 point. The number "50" may look arbitrary but happens to be working for me as my scope of interest is Makuuchi only for the time being, and lower ranked Makuuchi sekitori have to fight against upper Juryo opponents every now and then; J4W turned out to be sufficient for 2008 although I don't know whether, say, Shotenro could be assigned a Makuuchi opponent had he gone 13:0 this basho. I could easily add a few points to each rank, such as making the Y1E worth 55 or 60 points; this would slightly upgrade the relatively value of lower ranked maegashiras to the rest while at the same time slightly downgrading the relatively value of ozekis and yokozunas but actually not change that much about the order of total scores within a tournament. (But rating a yokozuna as, say, 100 points would result in a M6E being worth 80% of this, and that doesn't sound reasonable to me, so no simple coverage of Juryo with the same method, the values would then have to be non-linear somehow.) At first glance it looks strange to value the Y1E with 50 points and the ozekis with 45-48 points despite the relatively weak ozeki performance during recent years. But given the genkiness element and observing that ozeki struggle with their kachikoshi while healthy yokozuna are always in double-digit wins territory their value will surely not even be close (unless a yokozuna gets injured during a basho). Given these ideas, what would be the actual value numbers? Lower maegashira will be worth around 100 points, be that a genki M16E with 10 wins (10*10=100), an okay M14E with 7 wins (14*7=98) or a weaker M11E with 5 wins (20*5=100). To be worth 200 points one might be a M12-E with 11 wins (18*11=198, a sansho candidate like Yoshikaze in Kyushu) up to an overpromoted M1W with 5 wins (39*5=200, Futeno in Kyushu). Genki meat grinder maegashiras occasionally are worth 300-400 points (Kokkai M5W/12 in March was 372, Kisenosato M1E/10 in January topped the scale with a full 400) and get into kachikoshi ozeki territory already. The highest possible value one can get with a victory is beating the Y1E/14, that would be a score of 50*14=700 points. Beating Asashoryu/3 in Nagoya was worth a mere 150 points for Toyonoshima K1W/10 (who finished this basho in fourth place score-wise nonetheless), beating Asashoryu/5 in Aki was worth 245 points (compare that to beating Futeno M10W/11 for 231 points). Doing the calculation (Excel spreadsheet, manual input) I soon saw that beating strong opponents while losing to weaker opponents is much better than doing the opposite, and in fact there are certain specialists (Aminishiki, Kisenosato) who might be overvalued by my model. Then again, a loss is a loss and doesn't get you anywhere while wins against strong opponents give you reputation, kensho and possibly even a sansho or a kinboshi. And those maegashira who do outstanding performance of this kind are exactly those who I want to compare to the current ozekis, as one of the ideas behind my tables is: Which meat grinder (or even lower) competitor shows a performance that would be equivalent to making an ozeki kachikoshi? It might be difficult to become an ozeki given the requirements but it's interesting to see where the ozeki potential might already be (and how many consecutive basho a sekitori already did that well), and considering the opponents' value might be a bit more helpful than simply counting wins. One observation I made is that a bad start into a tournament is something a sekitori can't really fix score-wise in the course of the basho because he will get opponents of lower value in later matches (be that lower rank or lower genkiness, or both). An 8:7 after a 0:5 start is usually a lot less worth than an 8:7 after a 5:0 given the different sets of opponents you will likely get. It's also a big difference for double-digit winning maegashiras whether they still win when facing really strong opponents as these can be worth three or four times as much as the opponents of their first matches during that same basho. Given my current numbers, the strongest performance in 2008 of a maegashira below the meat grinder was Baruto's M7E/12 in Haru (2633 points) because he won his last two matches against Chiyotaikai O2W/8 (360) and Miyabiyama M2W/7 (259) while his most valuable prey was actually Kokkai M5W/12 (372). Kokkai himself, while being ranked higher in the banzuke, scored slightly lower than Baruto (2593 points) because he got weaker opponents: Kokkai won all of his last six matches after a 6:3 start, and his only 'big prey' was Kaio/8 on day 15. Said Baruto was worth 336 points as opponent in this tournament (i. e slightly less than Chiyotaikai but at least in the same range), and those three sekitori who managed to beat him (Hokutoriki M7W/8, Kyokutenho M4W/9 and Asasekiryu M1E/8) deserved these points (all being genki opponents themselves). Then again, even if Baruto had won all 15 matches against these opponents (yes, I know he would rather have had both yokozunas as final opponents in this case...) he would still have gotten a slightly lower score than Hakuho/12 in this basho and thus finished "virtual third" because only one of his first nine wins was worth more than 200 points. So what would the scores of a full tournament be like? Genki maegashira score about 1000 points (Kyushu: Chiyohakuho M16W/9 who defeated Yoshikaze M12E/11 and Kokkai M11E/9), meat grinder sekitori with kachikoshi score about 2000 points (Kyushu: Kotoshogiku M3E/9 who defeated Baruto S1E/9, Kisenosato M4E/11 and Toyonoshima M1E/9), ozekis with a mere kachikoshi usually score better than 2000 but this depends on their opponents mix - there have been 8 wins ozeki performances from 1683 points (Kotooshu/8 in Kyushu beating opponents with an average of 5.875 wins, including just one ozeki) to 2639 points (Kotomitsuki/8 in Haru beating opponents with an average of 8.25 wins, including Asashoryu/13). Hakuho's 15:0 in Nagoya made the year high score of 4499 points, just slightly more than the 4401 points for his 14:1 in Aki (due to very genki competitors there: Kotomitsuki/11, Ama/12, all ozekis made kachikoshi there whereas the meat grinder was a disaster). As for Kyushu 2008, Ama scored the best second place of the year with 4012 points (better than Asahoryu's 13 wins yusho in Haru), and Hakuho would only be "virtual second" here unless he gets the points for his kettei-sen additional win. Yoshikaze M12E/11 (who had just one valuable win in this basho, over Kyokutenho M6W/10 for 290 points, the rest of his wins produce an average of a mere 88 points) has about the same score for this basho as Hokutoriki M3W/5 (who at least beat Baruto S1W/9 on Day 1 for 387 points)... that's how unfriendly the model is to lower maegashira ranks. One the other hand, Kisenosato M4E/11 showed the third best performance in this basho behind the two kettei-sen participants (way better than the scores of Aminishiki, Baruto and Toyonoshima in positions 4-6), and even the best maegashira performance of all 2008 with his 3283 points (after all, beating three ozeki and both sekiwake all of which got kachikoshi and an average of 9.4 wins this basho). And what about a longer time frame? One might simply add up the scores of a year (to make it a similar list as in tennis). Then again, the most recent results might be considered more relevant for the current situation than the results five bashos ago. My current formula attempts a compromise, assigning the weights 5,6,7,8,9 and 10 to the last six bashos, thus making the most recent basho of the year twice as relevant as the oldest one. Compared to giving all tournaments the same weight (these are configurable in my spreadsheet), the difference in ranking order is surprisingly small, with the one notable exception of Asashoryu whose three strong bashos were all in the first half of the year). Of course the "virtual ranks" of sekitori who missed one or even more bashos can't be taken that seriously (no one would reasonably assume Asashoryu to be a maegashira in terms of quality, or would you? If all bashos got the same weight then Asashoryu would still keep a "virtual ozeki" position as he made 45 wins after all and had strong opponents in every basho). But the resulting list gives some general statements that can't be too far away from the truth: Hakuho reigns supreme in 2008, with Ama being in undisputed second place, significantly better than all ozekis. Of these, Kotomitsuki is in third place and Kotooshu (who made up for his mere 2 wins performance in Haru by his 14:1 yusho in Natsu) in fifth, both staying in ozeki territory on average. Kaio and Asashoryu can't compensate for their missing bashos and would even fall out of sanyaku range (to M1E and M1W. The two new "virtual ozekis" would be Kisenosato (almost on par with Kotomitsuki) and Aminishiki (with a mere 43 wins this year but lots of big shots amongst these), with Toyonoshima and Baruto in the "virtual sekiwake" slots while Kotoshogiku and Chiyotaikai (with 5 bashos only) would be the "virtual komosubis". And despite his mere 5 wins in Hatsu, Chiyotaikai will very likely jump back into "virtual ozeki" range with an average next basho already as he scored 0 points in Hatsu 2008.

Data update after Hatsu 2010 (top 40 positions now for Wakanosato's sake...): Pos. Score Wins Rank Sekitori Haru[5] Natsu[6] Nagoya[7] Aki[8] Kyushu[9] Hatsu[10] --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- _1.( 1) 4207 (-209) 84 Y1-E Hakuho 4565/15 4199/14 4115/14 4677/14 4613/15 3358/12 _2.( 2) 3326 (+ 6) 71 Y1-W Asashoryu 2733/11 3195/12 2456/10 4479/14 2804/11 3858/13 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- _3.( 3) 2941 (- 86) 61 O1-W Harumafuji 2745/10 4912/14 2372/ 9 2347/ 9 3120/ 9 2569/10 _4.( 4) 2615 (- 63) 60 O1-E Kotooshu 2878/10 2234/ 9 3470/13 1963/ 9 2803/10 2468/ 9 _5.( 5) 2553 (+297) 56 S1-E Baruto 1624/ 8 900/ 4 2450/11 3188/12[K] 2580/ 9 3550/12[S] --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- _6.( 6) 2099 (- 12) 48 K1-W Kakuryu 2672/10[G] 2552/ 9[G] 896/ 5 3286/11[G] 1855/ 7 1654/ 6 _7.( 9) 2050 (+116) 49 O2-W Kaio 1775/ 8 1905/ 8 1921/ 8 1780/ 8 2246/ 8 2404/ 9 _8.( 8) 2016 (+ 47) 49 M03-W Kisenosato 1160/ 5 2525/13[K] 2827/ 9 1840/ 7 1332/ 6 2329/ 9 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- _9.(10) 1800 (- 52) 46 K1-E Kotoshogiku 1495/ 6 1866/10 1940/ 8 1518/ 6 2507/10 1405/ 6 10.( 7) 1748 (-230) 46 O2-E Kotomitsuki 2168/ 8 1502/ 8 3390/12 1710/ 9 2020/ 8 320/ 1 11.(11) 1702 (- 41) 44 M02-E Goeido 2350/ 9 1564/ 6 1300/ 5 1701/10 1632/ 7 1804/ 7 12.(16) 1652 (+352) 47 M01-E Toyonoshima 1405/ 8 610/ 5 862/ 8 1314/ 7 2468/11[G] 2489/ 8 13.(12) 1602 (+169) 48 M06-W Aminishiki 1549/ 9 1299/ 5 2572/11[G] 1077/ 7 1188/ 5 1922/11[G] --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 14.(15) 1381 (+ 41) 41 M04-W Takekaze 1530/ 8 556/ 4 1183/ 8 1692/ 9 1614/ 6 1482/ 6 15.(13) 1327 (- 79) 41 M05-W Kyokutenho 1290/ 6 1784/ 8 1384/ 6 918/ 5 1399/ 8 1296/ 8 16.(14) 1236 (-119) 45 M01-W Tochinoshin 734/ 6 1096/ 9 1545/ 9 877/ 4 2377/12[K] 616/ 5 17.(19) 1173 (- 32) 42 M05-E Yoshikaze 1068/ 7 740/ 4 824/ 6 1311/ 9 1831/10 1026/ 6 18.(17) 1155 (- 56) 39 M08-E Tokitenku 1316/ 5 1171/ 7 1024/ 9 1548/ 8 1151/ 5 844/ 5 19.(18) 1115 (- 93) 40 M10-E Tochiozan 2246/ 8 1413/ 6 335/ 2 1572/11 812/ 5 822/ 8 20.(25) 1097 (+ 67) 44 M04-E Kakizoe 1043/ 7 789/ 8 840/ 6 1005/ 9 1412/ 8 1280/ 6 21.(20) 1094 (- 56) 44 M12-E Homasho 1995/11[K] 120/ 1 1365/10 1297/ 7 900/ 6 1051/ 9 22.(26) 1087 (+ 89) 46 M10-W Aran 1132/10 1461/ 8 860/ 4 1126/ 7 805/ 7 1222/10 23.(21) 1066 (- 68) 42 M02-W Miyabiyama 772/ 4 1039/ 9 1277/ 8 675/ 4 1597/12[K] 916/ 5 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 24.(24) 997 (- 63) 42 M11-E Takamisakari 1122/ 6 1115/ 9 1275/ 6 889/ 6 1008/ 8 747/ 7 25.(22) 981 (- 94) 38 M13-E Tamanoshima 1374/ 8 812/ 5 1720/ 9 1102/ 5 358/ 4 833/ 7 26.(27) 920 (- 5) 41 M14-E Iwakiyama 1183/ 8 1066/ 9 989/ 5 1157/ 8 380/ 2 948/ 9 27.(35) 877 (+156) 49 M07-E Tamawashi 1067/ 9 965/ 6 374/ 5 88/11 1144/10 1472/ 8 28.(28) 866 (- 25) 43 M08-W Asasekiryu 1155/ 9 748/ 5 908/ 9 776/ 6 858/ 8 843/ 6 29.(37) 865 (+234) 49 M16-W Toyohibiki 36/12 1442/11 711/ 3 751/ 6 337/ 5 1608/12[K] 30.(29) 859 (- 30) 40 M09-W Shotenro 676/ 7 974/ 8 1569/11[K] 880/ 2 820/ 9 402/ 3 31.(34) 847 (+102) 32 M07-W Wakanosato 1309/ 6 0/ 0 0/ 0 1276/10 969/ 7 1262/ 9 32.(33) 825 (+ 76) 43 M13-W Shimotori 903/ 8 549/ 6 1156/ 9 545/ 4 1001/ 8 786/ 8 33.(30) 761 (- 31) 39 M09-E Kokkai 774/ 5 867/ 8 713/ 5 744/ 8 812/ 8 694/ 5 34.(23) 738 (-336) 22 S1-W Chiyotaikai 288/ 2 1627/ 8 2164/ 8 326/ 2 474/ 2 0/ 0 35.(32) 737 (- 48) 40 M06-E Bushuyama 64/ 8 1072/ 9 546/ 5 1209/10 1097/ 6 306/ 2 36.(39) 716 (+201) 49 M12-W Tosayutaka 48/ 8 72/ 9 771/ 8 810/ 6 882/ 8 1173/10 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 37.(31) 600 (-189) 39 M03-E Hokutoriki 290/ 2 387/ 4 22/11 1219/11 1378/ 8 90/ 3 38.(40) 585 (+ 71) 37 M11-W Mokonami 0/ 0 77/11 742/ 6 771/ 5 971/ 9 577/ 6 39.(36) 525 (-107) 35 M15-W Tochinonada 1555/ 8 722/ 5 517/ 6 436/ 4 48/ 8 400/ 4 40.(38) 445 (-145) 35 J03-E Futeno 1021/ 7 860/ 6 670/ 6 572/ 5 35/ 7 16/ 4 Repeating his Hatsu yusho from 2009 (the first yusho below 4000 points since his 13 wins in Haru 2008), Asashoryu could keep his level; Sumo lost a great champion now. Hakuho had his first performance below 4000 points in 10 basho (Natsu 2008). As for the "olde ozeki" group, Chiyotaikai had three 2200+ scores in four subsequent basho back in mid-2008 but never managed to repeat this performance; now that he's gone it may be time to worry about Kotomitsuki who had only one 2200+ score (12 wins for 3390 points at Nagoya 2009) in his last 8 basho (after four subsequent 2200+ scores in the same four basho 2008 as Chiyotaikai). Kaio (who had four consecutive basho in mid-2008 with an average of 2306 points before his injury) improved his scores recently, scoring big for defeating Harumafuji O1-W/10=470 and Hakuho Y1-E/12=600 this time. With a 2942 points average of his recent 4 basho, Baruto plays in a different league than the lower sanyaku ranks. This time he scored a career high so far (and higher than even Hakuho whom he defeated for the first time) but 9318 points in three basho (including a 5:0 + 2:2 + 3:0 = 10:2 score against ozeki opponents) didn't earn him the ozeki promotion yet, despite clearly being the third best during the last six months (Harumafuji 8036, Kotooshu 7234, Kakuryu 6795, Kaio 6430, Toyonoshima 6271; Ama's Ozeki run in 2008 with 35 wins had been worth 10543 points while Kakuryu's three Gino-Sho from 2009 would add up to a mere 8510 points). Note how Baruto's 9 wins for 2580 points in Aki 2009 (that were debated as being the potential reason for his non-promotion) scored higher than every single one of Kaio's twelve kachi-koshi results since the beginning of 2008 (maximum: 9 wins for 2512 points in Aki 2008 including a win over Kotomitsuki O1-E/11=528), not to mention Chiyotaikai's seven kachi-koshi results during this time (maximum: 8 wins for 2476 points in Haru 2008 including a win over Hakuho Y1-E/12=600). Kisenosato didn't beat an ozeki this time but defeated Baruto S1-E/12=528, Aminishiki M06-W/11=319 and Toyonoshima M01-E/8=320. Toyonoshima himself scored even higher than last time (when he won the gino-sho) due to his quality wins over Kaio O2-W/9=405, Harumafuji O1-W/10=470, and Baruto S1-E/12=528, showing good sekiwake potential for two consecutive basho. The group of regular 2000+ points scorers has shrunk significantly, with Goeido missing this score for 5 basho in a row (after three out of four 2000+ basho in late 2008/early 2009; his kinboshi win over Asashoryu Y1-W/13=637 makes up for 35% of his score this time), and both Kotoshogiku and Aminishiki getting that much only once in 7 basho (after three resp. four 2000+ scores in 2008) - and all of this despite all "three old ozekis" (including Chiyotaikai) being less competitive these days than they were in 2008. Aminishiki's gino-sho from M06-W was rather light on the opponents' side with wins over Bushuyama M06-E/2, Tokitenku M08-E/5, Kokkai M09-E/5, Asasekiryu M08-W/6, and Kakuryu K1-W/6 as the only sanyaku rikishi amongst these (had he defeated Baruto on day 13 when he had the chance to it would have been a different story, then earning him some 2500-ish score like Harumafuji or Kotooshu). So Toyohibiki's kanto-sho run with 1608 points from the lowest maegashira position M16-W (from where you don't get valuable opponents that often) actually was more impressive, winning his last six bouts and defeating genki opponents such as Shimotori M13-W/8, Tamawashi M07-E/8, Sagatsukasa J01-W/9, Kitataiki M15-E/9, Homasho M12-E/9, Wakanosato M07-W/9, and Aran M10-W/10; the only other 1500+ points result from any two-digits maegashira rank in the last two years had been Tochiozan M12-E/11 with 1572 points in Aki 2009, from a rank that was 8 positions higher. Wakanosato still has two 0 points basho in his score, keeping him out of the top 30 range... but with a potential of 1200 points per basho he might be at a top 20 rank again in mid-2010 (where the real banzuke has him anyway). Kokkai's only 1000+ score in the last 10 basho was Kyushu 2008 but he managed to stay in makuuchi with a minimum of effort; Asasekiryu (who had three 1900+ basho back in early 2008) shows a similar tendency these days.

Except for his Natsu 2009 failure, Baruto had 9 kachi-koshi in a row since mid-2008 (10-8-9-9-8-4-11-12-9-12), all but one in sanyaku; with Asashoryu out of the way ozeki runs will become easier so the Estonian crane should become ozeki at least somewhere in 2010. But other than that, I don't see any new ozeki soon; even with both Kotomitsuki and Kaio gone the sanyaku guys would get no more than 4 additional wins during an ozeki run (it's not like a young and healthy M07 such as Tochinoshin or Aran would be that much easier to beat than an ageing ozeki) meaning that they should have had 29-30 already to make a credible claim. Kisenosato had 28 in early 2008 starting from M01 which was his best shot so far, then 29 in mid-2009 but starting with 13 from M04; Kakuryu had 28 in early 2009 but none of these as sekiwake; Toyonoshima had 27 in 2008 including a make-koshi; Goeido had 25 in 2009 including a make-koshi; Kotoshogiku had 25 in early 2008 and 24 in late 2009. These guys may well outbalance each other for quite a while. As for the next yokozuna, I guess we'll also have to wait quite a while. I don't see the one who would even claim two yusho back-to-back if Hakuho were injured. Baruto isn't consistent enough for this and still in permanent danger of injuries. Kotooshu is a yusho candidate when in perfect shape but not twice in a row. Harumafuji might improve enough to become a permanent yusho candidate, having now gotten more experience as ozeki - he would be my first choice if the next yokozuna were to be found before 2012 considering how much Aminishiki's scores improved after gaining some more weight. But the next yokozuna might not even be in makuuchi yet. Hakuho set a 86:4 record in 2009 and still won only three basho during that year; maybe this was his peak already? He's young enough for some more years of domination but we'll have to wait for the effect of Asashoryu's intai on his performance; with this rivalry gone it may have a negative effect on his performance. If so, I'd expect a larger variety of yusho winners - whenever he ends up with 12:3 the yusho is up for grabs for any of the gaijin ozeki who's on a roll these two weeks. If we neglect Asashoryu's bouts in Hatsu 2010 then Baruto would already have taken the yusho there, and that was with Hakuho being in the race. I can even imagine Kisenosato win a 12:3 yusho via kettei-sen when in perfect shape (but the probability of a Japanese yusho winner in 2010/11 is very small), and I would love to see Toyonoshima getting a double-digit score from sekiwake at least once.

Sekitori ordered by birthday: M1w Tochinoshin Georgia Kasugano 13.10.1987 191.5 153.7 M10e Tochiozan Kochi Kasugano 09.03.1987 189.5 147 J13e Gagamaru Georgia Kise 23.02.1987 185 182.9 J14e Myogiryu Hyogo Sakaigawa 22.10.1986 187 138 M3w Kisenosato Ibaraki Naruto 03.07.1986 188 171.2 M2e Goeido Osaka Sakaigawa 06.04.1986 182 148.5 K1w Kakuryu Mongolia Izutsu 10.08.1985 187 136.6 J2e Okinoumi Shimane Hakkaku 29.07.1985 190 134.5 Y1e Hakuho Mongolia Miyagino 11.03.1985 191.5 152.2 M12w Tosayutaka Kochi Tokitsukaze 10.03.1985 178.5 139.3 ------------------------------------------------------------------- (25 years) M16w Toyohibiki Yamaguchi Sakaigawa 16.11.1984 185 168 M7e Tamawashi Mongolia Kataonami 16.11.1984 190 155.4 S1e Baruto Estonia Onoe 05.11.1984 198 177.9 J10w Kiyoseumi Aichi Kise 16.08.1984 183 179.9 J6w Masatsukasa Aomori Irumagawa 07.06.1984 183 134 J9w Yamamotoyama Saitama Onoe 08.05.1984 190 251.5 O1w Harumafuji Mongolia Isegahama 14.04.1984 185 126 M11w Mokonami Mongolia Tatsunami 05.04.1984 186.5 146.9 J4e Wakakoyu Chiba Onomatsu 24.02.1984 179 161 M16e Koryu Mongolia Hanakago 04.02.1984 185.5 152 M10w Aran Russia Mihogaseki 31.01.1984 187 144 K1e Kotoshogiku Fukuoka Sadogatake 30.01.1984 180 162.8 J13w Sokokurai China Arashio 09.01.1984 185 125.1 J11e Hoshikaze Mongolia Oguruma 15.12.1983 180.4 119 J8w Kirinowaka Kumamoto Michinoku 18.09.1983 177 123 J1e Tokusegawa Mongolia Kiriyama 06.08.1983 190.2 148.2 M1e Toyonoshima Kochi Tokitsukaze 29.06.1983 170.5 143.2 M14w Hakuba Mongolia Michinoku 05.05.1983 186.5 119.8 J7w Chiyohakuho Kumamoto Kokonoe 21.04.1983 181.5 135 J12w Sakaizawa Saitama Onoe 11.04.1983 188 158.8 O1e Kotooshu Bulgaria Sadogatake 19.02.1983 203 154.9 J7e Tamaasuka Aichi Kataonami 26.01.1983 185 147.9 M15e Kitataiki Tokyo Kitanoumi 05.10.1982 185 142.4 M5e Yoshikaze Oita Oguruma 19.03.1982 178 134.8 M9w Shotenro Mongolia Musashigawa 31.01.1982 189 147 J1w Sagatsukasa Shizuoka Irumagawa 21.12.1981 166 125.3 M8w Asasekiryu Mongolia Takasago 07.08.1981 185 140.5 J9e Shirononami Kumamoto Onoe 16.07.1981 173.5 128.1 J3w Kimurayama Wakayama Kasugano 13.07.1981 182 164 M12e Homasho Yamaguchi Shikoroyama 16.04.1981 187 150.4 M9e Kokkai Georgia Oitekaze 10.03.1981 189.5 153.9 Y1w Asashoryu Mongolia Takasago 27.09.1980 184 148 J3e Futeno Kumamoto Dewanoumi 28.08.1980 180.5 157.2 ------------------------------------------------------------------- (30 years) M8e Tokitenku Mongolia Tokitsukaze 10.09.1979 186 142.8 M4w Takekaze Akita Oguruma 21.06.1979 171 142 M6w Aminishiki Aomori Isegahama 03.10.1978 185 143.6 M4e Kakizoe Oita Musashigawa 12.08.1978 177 137.8 M13w Shimotori Niigata Tokitsukaze 18.03.1978 188 142 J12e Kyokunankai Kagoshima Oshima 14.12.1977 180 133.6 M3e Hokutoriki Tochigi Hakkaku 31.10.1977 182 150.8 J5w Wakatenro Hokkaido Magaki 18.10.1977 184 160.4 M13e Tamanoshima Fukushima Kataonami 15.09.1977 187 164.1 J2w Kotokasuga Fukuoka Sadogatake 25.08.1977 182.5 150.2 M2w Miyabiyama Ibaraki Musashigawa 28.07.1977 187 183 J4w Kasugao Korea Kasugayama 01.07.1977 184 149.2 M7w Wakanosato Aomori Naruto 10.07.1976 185 163.3 J14w Jumonji Aomori Michinoku 09.06.1976 184 159.8 M6e Bushuyama Aomori Musashigawa 21.05.1976 191 170.3 M11e Takamisakari Aomori Azumazeki 12.05.1976 187.5 141.7 S1w Chiyotaikai Oita Kokonoe 29.04.1976 181 154.1 O2e Kotomitsuki Aichi Sadogatake 11.04.1976 182 156 M14e Iwakiyama Aomori Sakaigawa 02.03.1976 184 177 J6e Asofuji Aomori Isegahama 17.01.1976 180.2 126.1 J10e Kasuganishiki Chiba Kasugano 22.08.1975 188 151.5 ------------------------------------------------------------------- (35 years) M5w Kyokutenho Mongolia Oshima 13.09.1974 191.5 158.2 J8e Toyozakura Hiroshima Michinoku 12.03.1974 182.5 134.1 M15w Tochinonada Ishikawa Kasugano 26.02.1974 187.5 164.2 J11w Kaiho Aomori Hakkaku 17.04.1973 177 122 O2w Kaio Fukuoka Tomozuna 24.07.1972 184 171.3 J5e Tosanoumi Kochi Isenoumi 16.02.1972 186 154.2 Amongst the 13 youngest sekitori 10 are already in makuuchi (including Y1e Hakuho!), only 3 are still in juryo; it's not like there were a lot of young guns ready to replace the old horses. Japan's "hopeful talents" apparently still are Tochiozan, Kisenosato and Goeido, with the renamed Myogiryu having his first juryo appearance next month and Okinoumi perhaps getting his first shot at makuuchi now from J2e. Note how both Georgians are amongst the youngest three, and both youngest sekitori are from Kasugano beya.

Comparison 2009 to 2008 (top 30 positions): --------------------------------- _1.( 1) 4416 (+ 435) Hakuho --------------------------------- _2.(12) 3320 (+1594) Asashoryu _3.( 2) 3027 (- 71) Harumafuji _4.( 5) 2678 (+ 557) Kotooshu --------------------------------- _5.( 7) 2256 (+ 284) Baruto _6.(18) 2111 (+ 812) Kakuryu _7.( 3) 1978 (- 451) Kotomitsuki _8.( 4) 1969 (- 410) Kisenosato _9.(11) 1934 (+ 149) Kaio 10.( 9) 1852 (- 31) Kotoshogiku 11.(14) 1743 (+ 123) Goeido --------------------------------- 12.( 6) 1433 (- 615) Aminishiki 13.(13) 1406 (- 237) Kyokutenho 14.(33) 1355 (+ 753) Tochinoshin 15.(20) 1340 (+ 77) Takekaze 16.( 8) 1300 (- 658) Toyonoshima 17.(17) 1211 (- 115) Tokitenku 18.(26) 1208 (+ 229) Tochiozan 19.(30) 1205 (+ 407) Yoshikaze 20.(29) 1150 (+ 352) Homasho 21.(15) 1134 (- 444) Miyabiyama 22.(32) 1075 (+ 446) Tamanoshima 23.(10) 1074 (- 791) Chiyotaikai 24.(25) 1060 (+ 68) Takamisakari 25.(28) 1030 (+ 184) Kakizoe 26.(41) 998 (+ 814) Aran 27.(34) 925 (+ 396) Iwakiyama 28.(16) 891 (- 673) Asasekiryu 29.(--) 889 (+ 889) Shotenro 30.(24) 792 (- 330) Kokkai Not that great a year for the Japanese of whom only Kaio and Goeido slightly improved their score within the top 12 while Yoshikaze made the biggest step forward (Tamanoshima and Iwakiyama hat Juryo visits in 2008). With three of the "big four" amongst the biggest winners, ozeki runs may now be even more difficult. Hokutoriki, Futeno, Tochinonada (all with Juryo visits) and Dejima (retired) dropped out of the top 30 this year. Asashoryu attending 6 bashos again almost doubled his score while we saw huge improvements for Kakuryu, Tochinoshin, Aran and Shotenro and deep declines for Kotomitsuki, Kisenosato, Aminishiki, Toyonoshima, Chiyotaikai and Miyabiyama, with Asasekiryu being the only gaijin to go against the trend.

Data update after Kyushu 2009 (top 30 positions): Pos. Score Wins Rank Sekitori Hatsu[5] Haru[6] Natsu[7] Nagoya[8] Aki[9] Kyushu[10] --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- _1.( 1) 4416 (+ 72) 86 Y-W Hakuho 4158/14 4565/15 4199/14 4115/14 4677/14 4613/15 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- _2.( 3) 3320 (+137) 72 Y-E Asashoryu 4524/14 2733/11 3195/12 2456/10 4479/14 2804/11 _3.( 2) 3027 (- 90) 59 O2-E Harumafuji 2813/ 8 2745/10 4912/14 2372/ 9 2347/ 9 3120/ 9 _4.( 4) 2678 (+138) 61 O1-E Kotooshu 2831/10 2878/10 2234/ 9 3470/13 1963/ 9 2803/10 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- _5.( 6) 2256 (+ 76) 53 S1-E Baruto 2275/ 9 1624/ 8 900/ 4 2450/11 3188/12[K] 2580/ 9 _6.( 7) 2111 (+ 81) 51 S1-W Kakuryu 1164/ 9 2672/10[G] 2552/ 9[G] 896/ 5 3286/11[G] 1855/ 7 _7.( 8) 1978 (+ 32) 47 O1-W Kotomitsuki 556/ 2 2168/ 8 1502/ 8 3390/12 1710/ 9 2020/ 8 _8.( 5) 1969 (-305) 48 K1-E Kisenosato 2291/ 8 1160/ 5 2525/13[K] 2827/ 9 1840/ 7 1332/ 6 _9.(11) 1934 (+267) 48 O2-W Kaio 1841/ 8 1775/ 8 1905/ 8 1921/ 8 1780/ 8 2246/ 8 10.(10) 1852 (+147) 46 M03-E Kotoshogiku 1408/ 6 1495/ 6 1866/10 1940/ 8 1518/ 6 2507/10 11.( 9) 1743 (+ 8) 47 K1-W Goeido 2275/10[G] 2350/ 9 1564/ 6 1300/ 5 1701/10 1632/ 7 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 12.(12) 1433 (-192) 40 M01-W Aminishiki 790/ 3 1549/ 9 1299/ 5 2572/11[G] 1077/ 7 1188/ 5 13.(13) 1406 (- 86) 42 M06-W Kyokutenho 1944/ 9 1290/ 6 1784/ 8 1384/ 6 918/ 5 1399/ 8 14.(25) 1355 (+335) 48 M08-W Tochinoshin 977/ 8 734/ 6 1096/ 9 1545/ 9 877/ 4 2377/12[K] 15.(15) 1340 (+ 48) 42 M01-E Takekaze 1279/ 7 1530/ 8 556/ 4 1183/ 8 1692/ 9 1614/ 6 16.(20) 1300 (+184) 41 M05-E Toyonoshima 478/ 2 1405/ 8 610/ 5 862/ 8 1314/ 7 2468/11[G] 17.(17) 1211 (+ 0) 43 M02-W Tokitenku 957/ 9 1316/ 5 1171/ 7 1024/ 9 1548/ 8 1151/ 5 18.(16) 1208 (- 41) 42 M03-E Tochiozan 1212/10 2246/ 8 1413/ 6 335/ 2 1572/11 812/ 5 19.(23) 1205 (+163) 42 M09-E Yoshikaze 1190/ 6 1068/ 7 740/ 4 824/ 6 1311/ 9 1831/10 20.(19) 1150 (+ 0) 43 M07-W Homasho 1466/ 8[K] 1995/11[K] 120/ 1 1365/10 1297/ 7 900/ 6 21.(22) 1134 (+ 49) 43 M09-W Miyabiyama 1370/ 6 772/ 4 1039/ 9 1277/ 8 675/ 4 1597/12[K] 22.(18) 1075 (-119) 42 M07-E Tamanoshima 1437/11 1374/ 8 812/ 5 1720/ 9 1102/ 5 358/ 4 23.(14) 1074 (-253) 30 O3-E Chiyotaikai 2043/ 8 288/ 2 1627/ 8 2164/ 8 326/ 2 474/ 2 24.(21) 1060 (- 48) 41 M11-W Takamisakari 978/ 6 1122/ 6 1115/ 9 1275/ 6 889/ 6 1008/ 8 25.(27) 1030 (+114) 46 M05-W Kakizoe 940/ 8 1043/ 7 789/ 8 840/ 6 1005/ 9 1412/ 8 26.(24) 998 (- 27) 41 M08-E Aran 561/ 5 1132/10 1461/ 8 860/ 4 1126/ 7 805/ 7 27.(26) 925 (- 36) 40 M04-W Iwakiyama 991/ 8 1183/ 8 1066/ 9 989/ 5 1157/ 8 380/ 2 28.(28) 891 (- 7) 43 M10-E Asasekiryu 1024/ 6 1155/ 9 748/ 5 908/ 9 776/ 6 858/ 8 29.(30) 889 (+ 90) 48 M12-E Shotenro 88/11 676/ 7 974/ 8 1569/11[K] 880/ 2 820/ 9 30.(29) 792 (- 42) 39 M10-W Kokkai 880/ 5 774/ 5 867/ 8 713/ 5 744/ 8 812/ 8 With 6 non-zero bashos in a row, Asashoryu is back in 2nd place and Kaio back in the top 10. With four scores above 2800 and more than 10 wins per basho on average, Kotooshu delivered a decent ozeki performance; with a 2739 average of his last three results Baruto gives us hope to make the next step in the near future. Both Baruto and Kakuryu (the winner of this year with three Gino-Sho) had one basho below 1000 points and still scored higher than the three veteran ozekis, both surpassing Kisenosato as best non-ozekis. With weaker performances by Aminishiki (starting 4:3 and defeating three ozekis, only to go 0:7 from there and finally beating Iwakiyama/2 for a 5:10) and Kyokutenho (starting 2:4 from M06-W and getting to face weak opponents because of this, the kachi-koshi wasn't that difficult and thus not worth a lot) recently, the 300 points gap between position 11 and 12 looks significant. After a long slump, Toyonoshima showed his potential again with wins over Yoshikaze/10, Miyabiyama/12 and Kotooshu/10 (480 points); he's apparently sanyaku material unless injured. Tochinoshin began with three double-digit maegashita rankings in 2009 so his 48 wins were of relatively low quality but the trend clearly goes upwards and his Kyushu performance (from M08-W, defeating Kotoshogiku M02-E/10, Toyonoshima M05-E/11 and Miyabiyama M09-W/12, plus Kyokutenho/8, Asasekiryu/8, Tosayutaka/8, Takamisakari/8, Mokonami/9, Shotenro/9 and losing only to three kachi-koshi opponents) was indeed worth a sansho, more so than Miyabiyama's who faced a lot of weaker opponents in Kyushu (with 9 of his 12 wins over sekitori all of which were ranked below him with an average genkiness of 7 wins, plus defeating Tamanoshima/4, leaving only two valuable wins over Yoshikaze/10 and Kyokutenho/8). On the other hand, Kotoshogiku defeated Harumafuji/9 (day 1), Baruto/9 (day 2), Bushuyama/6, Iwakiyama/2, Aminishiki/5, Hokutoriki/8, Kisenosato/6, Goeido/7, Takekaze/6 and Kyokutenho/8, not earning him a sansho after his exceptional start but his best performance this year nonetheless. Kakizoe surprised with a kachi-koshi at M05-W (defeating Tochinoshin/12 in the process), getting his highest score of the year as well. Wakanosato still has two bashos with zero scores, keeping him out of the top 30 range just like Hokutoriki and Bushuyama with one Juryo basho each. Overall, the scores are increasing (+23 on average) probably due to a lower injuries rate in recent bashos. EDIT: Tagged all sansho winners, extended interpretation.

Was Asashoryu's gesture (which I believe to be a justified outbreak of relief for winning a yusho that few people considered possible for him, most notably after his suboptimal keiko) a worse thing than, say, giving an opponent an extra shove after the bout is effectively over, making a point of his feeling of superiority? Asashoryu makes the most of this "good yok/bad yok" rivalry between the two Mongolians. And both the sold-out seats and the number of kensho for the senshuraku bout show that he can't be all wrong with this, hinkaku and Japanese tradition notwithstanding. I do understand Ms. Uchidate's point of view but if she goes after Asashoryu mechanically she may happen to find herself alone in a corner every now and then.

In my ranking Kaio is 11th, suffering from his 1 win result at Kyushu a year ago (to be replaced next basho, with this in mind he is potentially 9th already). Lately, Kyokutenho's wins are over rather non-genki opponents (Aki: Chiyotaikai/2, Takekaze/9, Kotoshogiku/6, Tochinoshin/4, Miyabiyama/4 is an average of 5 wins only), thus he dropped down to rank 13 in my system. Compare this to Kotoshogiku who got some quality wins in Aki (Kaio/8, Kisenosato/7, Kakuryu/11), earning him rank 10 (despite losing the direct matchup against Kyokutenho). Miyabiyama's four wins in Aki were over Tokitenku/8, Chiyotaikai/2, Tamanoshima/5 and Tochinoshin/4, i. e. an average of a mere 4.75 wins amongst his opponents, thus in my ranking he dropped down as far as position 22 (after a 5.25 wins average of his opponents in Haru already, again including Chiyotaikai/2 back then - this might explain the big difference as I downgrade wins over a weak Chiyotaikai rather harshly).

With Asashoryu winning this yusho based on sheer will power (instead of perfect physical shape), these moments (and perhaps even the complaints about them afterwards) may actually be a significant source of energy for him. Would he have stood a chance against a Hakuho in 84-wins-a-year shape by merely executing technical sumo?

Data update after Aki 2009 (top 30 positions): Pos. Score Wins Rank Sekitori Kyushu[5] Hatsu[6] Haru[7] Natsu[8] Nagoya[9] Aki[10] ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- _1.(_1) 4344 84 Y-E Hakuho 4238/13 4158/14 4565/15 4199/14 4115/14 4677/14 _2.(_2) 3117 63 O2-E Harumafuji 4012/13 2813/ 8 2745/10 4912/14 2372/ 9 2347/ 9 _3.(_4) 3083 61 Y-W Asashoryu 0/ 0 4524/14 2733/11 3195/12 2456/10 4479/14 _4.(_3) 2540 59 O1-E Kotooshu 1683/ 8 2831/10 2878/10 2234/ 9 3470/13 1963/ 9 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- _5.(_5) 2274 53 S1-E Kisenosato 3283/11 2291/ 8 1160/ 5 2525/13 2827/ 9 1840/ 7 _6.(_7) 2180 53 K1-E Baruto 2389/ 9 2275/ 9 1624/ 8 900/ 4 2450/11 3188/12 _7.(13) 2030 49 M03-W Kakuryu 864/ 5 1164/ 9 2672/10 2552/ 9 896/ 5 3286/11 _8.(_6) 1946 48 O1-W Kotomitsuki 1890/ 9 556/ 2 2168/ 8 1502/ 8 3390/12 1710/ 9 _9.(_8) 1735 45 M05-E Goeido 1350/ 5 2275/10 2350/ 9 1564/ 6 1300/ 5 1701/10 10.(10) 1705 45 S1-W Kotoshogiku 2048/ 9 1408/ 6 1495/ 6 1866/10 1940/ 8 1518/ 6 11.(11) 1663 41 O2-W Kaio 210/ 1 1841/ 8 1775/ 8 1905/ 8 1921/ 8 1780/ 8 12.(_9) 1625 43 K1-W Aminishiki 2647/ 8 790/ 3 1549/ 9 1299/ 5 2572/11 1077/ 7 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 13.(14) 1492 44 M02-W Kyokutenho 2109/10 1944/ 9 1290/ 6 1784/ 8 1384/ 6 918/ 5 14.(12) 1327 36 O3-E Chiyotaikai 1937/ 8 2043/ 8 288/ 2 1627/ 8 2164/ 8 326/ 2 15.(16) 1292 45 M05-W Takekaze 1545/ 9 1279/ 7 1530/ 8 556/ 4 1183/ 8 1692/ 9 16.(18) 1249 43 M12-E Tochiozan 637/ 6 1212/10 2246/ 8 1413/ 6 335/ 2 1572/11 17.(21) 1211 45 M04-W Tokitenku 1093/ 7 957/ 9 1316/ 5 1171/ 7 1024/ 9 1548/ 8 18.(17) 1196 44 M03-E Tamanoshima 516/ 6 1437/11 1374/ 8 812/ 5 1720/ 9 1102/ 5 19.(24) 1150 43 M06-W Homasho 554/ 6 1466/ 8 1995/11 120/ 1 1365/10 1297/ 7 20.(19) 1116 39 M04-E Toyonoshima 2348/ 9 478/ 2 1405/ 8 610/ 5 862/ 8 1314/ 7 21.(20) 1108 43 M07-W Takamisakari 1369/10 978/ 6 1122/ 6 1115/ 9 1275/ 6 889/ 6 22.(15) 1085 41 M01-W Miyabiyama 1728/10 1370/ 6 772/ 4 1039/ 9 1277/ 8 675/ 4 23.(25) 1042 43 M15-E Yoshikaze 1169/11 1190/ 6 1068/ 7 740/ 4 824/ 6 1311/ 9 24.(29) 1025 42 M07-E Aran 830/ 8 561/ 5 1132/10 1461/ 8 860/ 4 1126/ 7 25.(22) 1020 39 M01-E Tochinoshin 687/ 3 977/ 8 734/ 6 1096/ 9 1545/ 9 877/ 4 26.(32) 961 38 M08-E Iwakiyama 0/ 0 991/ 8 1183/ 8 1066/ 9 989/ 5 1157/ 8 27.(26) 916 43 M11-E Kakizoe 873/ 5 940/ 8 1043/ 7 789/ 8 840/ 6 1005/ 9 28.(23) 898 40 M06-E Asasekiryu 853/ 5 1024/ 6 1155/ 9 748/ 5 908/ 9 776/ 6 29.(30) 834 40 M14-E Kokkai 1211/ 9 880/ 5 774/ 5 867/ 8 713/ 5 744/ 8 30.(35) 799 39 M02-E Shotenro 0/ 0 88/11 676/ 7 974/ 8 1569/11 880/ 2 (Score = weighted average with the weights shown next to the basho names) Asashoryu is back: The next basho will most likely see him in second place again (replacing the 0 points Kyusho result). His Aki result (despite including the playoff win) suffers from his almost worthless wins over Chiyotaikai/2=88 and Shotenro/2=74 whereas Hakuho lost against Shotenro, avoided Chiyotaikai and had the torikumi luck to face (and beat) a very genki Kakuryu/11=374 instead - who delivered his best result so far and actually finished "virtual third" this basho: Baruto's 12 wins include lots of valuable ozekis but also Chiyotaikai and Shotenro whereas Kakuryu had no opponent with fewer than 5 wins and scored big for wins over Baruto/12=492, Kotooshu/9=432, Kaio/8=360 and Goeido/10=310. Chiyotaikai drops his second basho this year; even Kaio had to rely on a senshuraku win over Kotomitsuki (who would tie Kakuryu's overall score had he won this last fight) for avoiding kadoban and barely staying above Goeido and Kotoshogiku (if we already ignore Kaio's weak Kyushu score). Of the sanyaku candidates, Baruto appears to be able to perform at 2000+ level almost consistently but Kakuryu (with three 2500+ scores in the last four basho, and three gino-sho) might actually be the winner of 2009 in this area. Kisenosato still has the highest non-ozeki average but Kakuryu will already surpass him in the next basho if both make the same score there (replacing Kise's best and Kakuryu's weakest score). Note how few sekitori got 2000 points this time (just one ozeki amongst them, and Kisenosato with makekoshi still earning the seventh highest score), making Baruto's and Kakuryu's 3000+ performances even more outstanding. Kyoukutenho appears to lose contact to the sanyaku candidate group; former sanyaku Tokitenku delivered his best performance for a long time. Shotenro's result of 880 points (from a disastrous looking 2:13) was actually to be expected score-wise (just not the kinboshi that was worth 700 points alone); Iwakiyama reliably delivers 1000 points every basho whereas Kokkai has dropped down to the 800-ish level, meaning permanent danger of demotion to Juryo. Wakanosato (with two zero-score bashos in a row) is currently ranked 31th in my list; his average of the other four bashos would be 1255, meaning a potential rank 16. The same goes for Hokutoriki (currently ranked 35th) with an average of 1198 from his three genki makuuchi bashos amongst the last six ones, and even Bushuyama (34th) has three scores > 1000 amongst his last six bashos.

I think Peterao means: "Does the query include wins over Yokozunae"? (The problem being that "all 5" would then be impossible to achieve these days, with 5+2=7 "ozeki+" sekitori.)

IMHO incremental strength correction during a basho is much less precise than using the total number of wins in the current basho as genkiness for the whole basho (thus losing the ability to use this mechanism for predicting bouts, which an ELO-based approach would handle better anyway): Overpromotions don't happen incrementally, and even a large part of injuries that influence genkiness have been caused before the basho already. That's somehow the line of thought that led me to use linear values for positions instead of banzuke ranks, and then introduce the genkiness part to reward a win over Hakuho/14 significantly higher than a win over Chiyotaikai/8.

We're doing very similar things after all, and I'm aware that Aminishiki profits from my not punishing losses against weaker opponents, so he's the most likely candidate for being ranked higher in my model than in yours. If anything, this comparison shows how the combination of linear values for banzuke positions plus genkiness gets quite close to Abe's valuation of banzuke ranks... His line in my table is:Pos. Score Wins Rank Sekitori Aki[5] Kyushu[6] Hatsu[7] Haru[8] Natsu[9] Nagoya[10] 33. 720 28 J06-W Wakanosato 1282/9 1537/6 899/7 1309/6 0/0 0/0 Given his potential of making four-digit scores he would be a candidate for rank 15-20 if he's in full health. I have everyone in my table who had at least one basho with a top 50 banzuke position within my time frame. I map the 50 highest banzuke positions to integers, which covers ranks down to J04-W (the likely limit for opponents of Makuuchi sekitori), thus Wakanosato can't make a score in Nagoya from J06-W (as I can't model his opponents with "negative positions" - see above in this thread how top Juryo gets a non-zero score) and didn't win a bout in Natsu. These two bashos get the highest weights of 9 and 10, thus Wakanosato is currently being punished for not making a single score point in the two most significant bashos (with a combined weight of 42.2%), which kicked him out of the top 30 temporarily. EDIT: Then again, giving all 6 bashos equal weights would still leave Wakanosato on position 31; skipping two bashos and defeating very un-genki opponents in Hatsu (none of the 7 opponents he defeated ended up better than 6:9, and the only one of them ranked higher than Wakanosato himself was Kotomitsuki who went kyuyo with 2 wins) is just too much for a better position in my list. Asashoryu was punished similarly in my table four bashos ago, see above in this thread; the punishment for being kyuyo is being diminished with each following basho, much like a fading memory. The factor of 2 between the most recent and the oldest basho is, again, arbitrarily - I didn't want to handle almost meaningless data from the oldest basho (therefore no 1 to 6) but considered the most recent basho somehow more significant than older data (therefore no equal weights of all 6 bashos), and 5 to 10 looked like a natural choice.

Data update after Nagoya 2009 (top 30 positions): Pos.Score Wins Rank Sekitori Aki[5] Kyushu[6] Hatsu[7] Haru[8] Natsu[9] Nagoya[10] --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- _1. 4267 84 Y-E Hakuho 4401/14 4238/13 4158/14 4565/15 4199/14 4115/14 _2. 3366 66 O1-E Harumafuji 3560/12 4012/13 2813/ 8 2745/10 4912/14 2372/ 9 _3. 2625 58 O1-W Kotooshu 2075/ 8 1683/ 8 2831/10 2878/10 2234/ 9 3470/13 _4. 2510 52 Y-W Asashoryu 1218/ 5 0/ 0 4524/14 2733/11 3195/12 2456/10 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- _5. 2298 52 S1-W Kisenosato 1481/ 6 3283/11 2291/ 8 1160/ 5 2525/13 2827/ 9 _6. 2094 50 O2-W Kotomitsuki 2843/11 1890/ 9 556/ 2 2168/ 8 1502/ 8 3390/12 _7. 1904 49 M03-W Baruto 1970/ 8 2389/ 9 2275/ 9 1624/ 8 900/ 4 2450/11 _8. 1831 45 M01-W Goeido 2499/10 1350/ 5 2275/10 2350/ 9 1564/ 6 1300/ 5 _9. 1811 44 M05-E Aminishiki 2056/ 8 2647/ 8 790/ 3 1549/ 9 1299/ 5 2572/11 10. 1720 45 K1-W Kotoshogiku 1418/ 6 2048/ 9 1408/ 6 1495/ 6 1866/10 1940/ 8 11. 1717 42 O2-E Kaio 2512/ 9 210/ 1 1841/ 8 1775/ 8 1905/ 8 1921/ 8 12. 1686 43 O3-E Chiyotaikai 2270/ 9 1937/ 8 2043/ 8 288/ 2 1627/ 8 2164/ 8 13. 1662 45 S1-E Kakuryu 1629/ 7 864/ 5 1164/ 9 2672/10 2552/ 9 896/ 5 14. 1630 45 K1-E Kyokutenho 1374/ 6 2109/10 1944/ 9 1290/ 6 1784/ 8 1384/ 6 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 15. 1185 41 M04-E Miyabiyama 1011/ 4 1728/10 1370/ 6 772/ 4 1039/ 9 1277/ 8 16. 1179 45 M09-E Takekaze 1152/ 9 1545/ 9 1279/ 7 1530/ 8 556/ 4 1183/ 8 17. 1166 46 M06-W Tamanoshima 762/ 7 516/ 6 1437/11 1374/ 8 812/ 5 1720/ 9 18. 1160 38 M02-E Tochiozan 1174/ 6 637/ 6 1212/10 2246/ 8 1413/ 6 335/ 2 19. 1115 38 M07-E Toyonoshima 1479/ 6 2348/ 9 478/ 2 1405/ 8 610/ 5 862/ 8 20. 1106 43 M04-W Takamisakari 591/ 6 1369/10 978/ 6 1122/ 6 1115/ 9 1275/ 6 21. 1102 43 M10-W Tokitenku 1004/ 6 1093/ 7 957/ 9 1316/ 5 1171/ 7 1024/ 9 22. 1028 43 M05-W Tochinoshin 820/ 8 687/ 3 977/ 8 734/ 6 1096/ 9 1545/ 9 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 23. 988 38 M12-E Asasekiryu 1425/ 4 853/ 5 1024/ 6 1155/ 9 748/ 5 908/ 9 24. 984 36 M15-E Homasho 0/ 0 554/ 6 1466/ 8 1995/11 120/ 1 1365/10 25. 946 41 M12-W Yoshikaze 752/ 7 1169/11 1190/ 6 1068/ 7 740/ 4 824/ 6 26. 923 44 M08-W Kakizoe 1175/10 873/ 5 940/ 8 1043/ 7 789/ 8 840/ 6 27. 901 40 M13-E Futeno 1424/11 970/ 5 711/ 5 1021/ 7 860/ 6 670/ 6 28. 896 38 M09-W Tochinonada 1093/ 6 510/ 5 1099/ 8 1555/ 8 722/ 5 517/ 6 29. 882 35 M01-E Aran 0/ 0 830/ 8 561/ 5 1132/10 1461/ 8 860/ 4 30. 841 40 M08-E Kokkai 657/ 8 1211/ 9 880/ 5 774/ 5 867/ 8 713/ 5 (Score = weighed average with the weights shown next to the basho names) Hakuho's performance is worth 4000 points (yusho contender equivalent) in every single basho - he is playing in his own league these days. Asashoryu with 6 full bashos would be on eye level with Harumafuji. The three yusho competitors are worth something equivalent to an ozeki run during the recent bashos: Harumafuji got 34+1 wins+yusho (10029 points, including 700 for the kettei-sen extra bout win over Hakuho/Y1E=50*14), Asashoryu got 33 wins (8384 points), Kotooshu got 32 wins+jun-yusho (8582 points). This shows how high the hurdle for the young guns to make it to ozeki actually is: Even Kisenosato's best three bashos scored no more than 8635 points in total and would barely suffice for this (33 wins as well but against weaker opponents; note how his 9 wins as S1-E in Nagoya score higher than his 13 wins as M04-E in Natsu). Kotomitsuki's three best bashos gave him 31 wins (8401 points). Ozekis may throw away a basho (at the expense of being kadoban in the next one) to heal injuries whereas sanyaku rikishi would ruin their position and need to fight their way back into their previous rank. And indeed Kotomitsuki (2009 Hatsu), Kaio (2008 Kyushu) and Chiyotaikai (2009 Haru) have all made use of this advantage recently. Had they made an average result in their

I agree with HenryK's comment on the comparison between Asashoryu and Tokitenku: Such ranking lists certainly don't give an idea of strength - but they give an idea of achievement over a period (just as the mere number of wins does). And given there are 15*6 = 90 bouts within a year I don't think a calender year is too short a period for this purpose (how many matches does a tennis player have within one year?). As for comparing Hakuho to Asashoryu: I also feel that Asashoryu has achieved more during his career than Hakuho has (until now). But the highest score of HenryK's system isn't a career overview, it is a high-score of temporary dominance in one particular time interval. And Hakuho may in fact be one of the most dominant yokozunae right now, given his high number of wins despite a competition of another yokozuna and five (more or less competitive) ozekis. (Then again, valuing the #7 ranked sekitori as ozeki now while this has been a sekiwake or maybe even a komosubi in Asashoryu's best days might be a weakness of Abe's model - Hakuho profits from a lot of wins over weak ozekis as there are so many of them nowadays.) I'm not going for a more precise measurement for quality (I trust the pre-basho information of the banzuke almost as much as Masami Abe and you do, but see below), I'm going for genkiness at the time of the bout. It's may still be oversimplifying but a lot better than ignoring the condition of the athlete in general, most notably when valuing wins against sekitori who're already injured and drop out of the tournament later.Which is why a fusen win over a high-ranked sekitori is no problem for me as it mostly isn't worth that much anyway given the low genkiness of said athlete in this particular basho - his previous basho level wouldn't help me in this aspect. In Masami Abe's model a fusen win over an ozeki may easily be the greatest achievement of a sekitori in this basho... The genkiness element also values wins against highly overpromoted sekitori (who end up 2:13 or the like) rather low instead of simply trusting the banzuke in these cases. As for the banzuke ranks: Was a victory over Asa in his ozeki run, i. e. when he was still a sekiwake but went 13:2, worth less than a victory over a nervous Harumafuji ozeki who went 8:7 one basho later, just because he didn't have the higher rank already? I don't think so, therefore I ignore the banzuke titles and go by banzuke positions, i. e. value Harumafuji S1E as high as Harumafuji O3E one basho later (both as position 7 with 44 points of 50 possible). I can afford to map banzuke ranks to a linear score because usually yokozunae win a lot more bouts than ozeki, i. e. the genkiness element handles this aspect as well (beating Hakuho/14:1 is normally worth about twice as much as beating Kaio/8:7 in my model).

It is interesting to see for me how this ranking list has the same top 5 positions at the end of 2008 as my method listed here (which is based on the same 6 basho). What's certainly better here than in my approach is that the quality index handles losses against opponents of different strength as well (which my model ignores, therefore e. g. Aminishiki is ranked 6th in my list but 10th here at the end of 2008). OTOH, the value of a win in this model is based on the opponent's rank alone while my model tries to value the opponent based on both his rank and genkiness (i. e. wins during the current basho), thus downgrading the value of e. g. kinboshi against a kyuyo yokozuna or beating weak ozekis but upgrading wins against sansho winners etc. (in Kyusho 2008 my model values a win over Kisenosato/M04E/11 slightly higher than a win over Kotooshu/O2W/8, and actually Kisenosato himself even scored twice as many points in this basho as Kotooshu did according to my model by beating genki opponents such as Ama/13 (valued much like a kinboshi), Kotomitsuki/9, Baruto/9, Toyonoshima/9, Chiyotaikai/8 and... Kotooshu/8). Another slight difference is that this model weighs all 6 bashos equally while my model weighs them with factors of 5-6-7-8-9-10, to give the most recent basho twice the influence of the one to be replaced next by the forthcoming basho's result and get closer to a situation's snapshot than to a year's ranking. (Thus in my ranking both Asashoryu and Kaio dropped out of the Top 10 at the end of 2008 because of missing Kyusho 2008 whereas Baruto is ranked 7th in my list at the end of 2008 already.)

Yes, it certainly would, and if it were my goal to predict matches I would do exactly this (I do have data for six bashos, no problem to start the next basho with the weighted average of the year 2008 for each sekitori - still not an ELO number but a lot better than nothing of course). Given the quadratic growth of information throughout a basho it would be plausible to use the current basho performance only with that weight and fill up to 100% by the weighted score average from some number of previous bashos (the six that I'm currently using is just for the purpose of covering a calender year, any other number with appropriate weights might do as well). This would mean to use the ranking list from before the basho with a weight of 100% for Day 1, with a weight of 99.555% on Day 2, with a weight of 98.222% on Day 3, with a weight of 96% on Day 4 and so on. By doing so the strength changes would flow more slowly into the process and only get a higher weight when enough information about the current basho is available. Getting "likely opponents" would be difficult for once, and of little use as well as predicting individual matches isn't just the strong element of this mechanism in the first place (and making it recursively dependent on its own weakness doesn't look like solving the problem). Compared to this it would be easier to guess the likely genkiness of an opponent by looking how many wins other sekitori of the roughly same ranking list score (at that time) made when they had a basho from the same banzuke position. That's what I tried to show with the Yoshikaze example - guessing 5 wins for him in order to value a win over Yoshikaze with a reasonable genkiness for the time being, i. e. until I have better information about how many wins he actually made. Given a database of, say, 5-10 years there should be enough examples for each banzuke rank to find at least 1-2 sekitori with similar data to any current situation. Yet, it wouldn't prevent the effect of yokozunas being slightly undervalued in the middle of a basho and meat grinder sekitori being overvalued due to their specific order of torikumi; to handle this one might have to develop separate formulas for each banzuke rank for the merging process of old and new information. But even without this I would expect to get much better results that by using a mere 20% of information in the middle of a basho as my previous posting did. I don't have any reasonable data base (still toying around with my spreadsheet for the time being) but I might actually try coding this thing just for fun... then again, that wasn't my goal when I started this thread. I wasn't trying to show a tool for playing sumo prediction games. If I were to play any such game then using strength values alone would certainly not be enough, I wouldn't want to ignore the fact that certain sekitori tend to "own" certain others, the fact that a sekitori with 7 wins is much more motivated than his opponent with 8 wins and other things like this (most of which can be done more reasonably with a huge historical database). I'm more interested in getting a kind of "virtual banzuke" that doesn't show the oddities of the existing sanyaku mechanism but is based on actual performance of all sekitori. Ama, for example, was definitely the second best sekitori of 2008 with his 61 wins over opponents on the same level as Hakuho's (okay, 2% weaker to be exact), and my score expresses this very clearly. It would, among other things, punish those who show "unmotivated sumo" after having their kachikoshi relatively to those who are going all out for a sansho/yusho. What I rather hoped for was a discussion about how sekitori like Aminishiki ought to be rated, a guy who performs excellently against sanyaku opponents and at the same time poorly against maegashiras. My formula (ignoring his losses) would give him a much higher score than if he did the exact opposite to come up with the same number of wins, and the idea behind this is that he is going after what the sumo audience apparently wants him to - sanshos and kinboshis (as he can apparently get them while doing an ozeki run seems out of the question as of now). Aminishiki had 43 wins in 2008, the same as Kaio; even if I weight all six bashos equally (as to not punish Kaio for having gone kyujo in the most recent basho) Aminishiki gets a higher average score (1970 : 1869) than Kaio as he beat the stronger opponents this year. Even Asashoryu with his 45 wins scores just slightly better with an average of 2041 points, and this would have been a mere 1950 points had he made two wins less, so the opponents whom Aminishiki defeated were actually stronger on average than those Asashoryu defeated! (Bad luck for Asashoryu that he left two bashos early where he had only rather weak opponents until then, this downgraded his opponents mix.) In terms of average score for the opponents they defeated, both Kisenosato and Amishishiki beat stronger opponents on average in 2008 than each of the four ozekis (only Hakuho and Ama defeated even stronger opponents this year). Baruto, for example, defeated much weaker opponents on average which puts his 51 wins a bit into perspective; my formula gives Baruto a score that's 96,3% of Aminishiki's. Kisenosato/51 gets almost the same average score by my model as Kotomitsuki/55. That's plausible: Early during a basho Kisenosato gets sanyaku opponents, late in the basho he gets genki maegashiras as he's genki himself whereas Kotomitsuki gets maegashiras of random genkiness early in the basho and the same sanyaku opponents as Kisenosato during the second half, thus on average Kisenosato's opponents will be stronger than Kotomitsuki's. On the other hand it is also a fact that Kisenosato beat 3 yokozunas and 12 ozekis in 2008 (counting only those who got a kachikoshi themselves but including Ama already) while Kotomitsuki only beat 2 yokozunas and 6 ozekis in 2008. That's why Kotomitsuki's 8 wins in Hatsu and 9 wins in Kyushu (where he didn't beat even a single genki ozeki in any of these two bashos) score extremely low for an ozeki (1803 resp. 1890 points). Would all of the above reward a statement that Kisenosato and Kotomitsuki performed at eye level in 2008, i. e. making up for the four wins that Kotomitsuki has more than Kisenosato? Does that "ring true" to what you believe to have seen in 2008? That's more what I'm interested in, as it would question my model as a whole instead of individual numeric parameters or it's use for a particular application.

As I thought, my mechanism (as it is right now, i. e. without incrementally 'shifting' the genkiness discussed in the previous posting) is unusable for predicting the outcome of matches during the first half of a basho. That's mostly because the "genkiness * rank value" formula is balanced as to value a genki middle maegashira as high as a weak high maegashira / low sanyaku sekitori, by having a factor of two variation in both dimensions. But early in the basho the number of wins between two opponents often differs by more than a factor of two (most notably if one of the opponents has none at all), which means that the banzuke rank will almost be ignored and the number of wins is too relevant. There are other effects, such as the yokozunas working through their opponents list from low to high, i. e. getting the strong opponents only late in the basho while the meat grinder maegashiras get the big shots early (whose value as opponents does not depend on their opponents, only on their number of wins which usually will be high early in the basho already) and if they manage to beat one of them they look strong for quite a while even when they don't keep up this performance whereas the yokozunas won't have the highest scores until they have met and beaten their strongest opponents. (That's exactly what the audience wants: Suspense until the end of the basho by giving the yokozunas the easy wins early and the tough matches later. But at the same time this makes predictions about the true strength of the highest ranked sekitori more difficult until they can really show what they're capable of.) To show you the effect, after day 7 the score ranking list was (21.8% of the basho information): Score Wins Banzuke Sekitori =========================== _ 815 4 K1W Aminishiki (defeated Hakuho, Chiyotaikai, Kotooshu, Kotoshogiku) _ 790 5 M01E Toyonoshima (defeated all 4 ozekis and Dejima/6) _ 701 6 M04E Kisenosato (defeated Ama, Kotomitsuki, Kotooshu) _ 595 5 S1W Baruto (defeated Aminishiki, Wakanosato, Toyonoshima) _ 579 4 M02W Wakanosato (defeated 3 ozekis and Aminishiki) _ 533 6 Y1E Hakuho (defeated Toyonoshima) _ 462 7 M07E Miyabiyama _ 387 6 M05W Dejima _ 346 6 M11E Kokkai _ 333 5 O2E Chiyotaikai (defeated Wakanosato, Kotoshogiku) That's what you get for beating yokozunas and ozekis early in the basho... Ama wasn't even in the top 10 with his 5 wins, and several of the top sekitori already had seemingly worthless wins over Futeno/0, Goeido/1, Hokutoriki/1 or Tochinoshin/1 at this time. If I had the torikumi for the complete basho beforehand I could compensate this effect... unfortunately a basho doesn't work this way. Despite all this, I tried to check the prediction rates for Day 8-15 of Kyusho basho. As I can't compute scores for Juryo opponents I can't "predict" any matches with Juryo participants, only matches within Makuuchi: Day Information Predictions>0% Predictions>5% Predictions>10% Predictions>20% ================================================================================ 08 21.8% 7:12 (36.8%) 4:11 (26.7%) 4:11 (26.7%) 4: 9 (30.8%) 09 28.4% 13: 6 (68.4%) 11: 6 (64.7%) 10: 5 (66.7%) 8: 5 (61.5%) 10 36.0% 14: 5 (73.7%) 13: 5 (72.2%) 13: 5 (72.2%) 10: 4 (71.4%) 11 44.4% 9: 9 (50.0%) 9: 8 (52.9%) 8: 7 (53.3%) 5: 7 (41.7%) 12 53.8% 7:10 (41.2%) 6:10 (37.5%) 6: 9 (40.0%) 4: 2!(66.7%) 13 64.0% 12: 5 (70.6%) 10: 5 (66.7%) 9: 4 (69.2%) 9: 2 (81.8%) 14 75.1% 9: 8 (52.9%) 9: 8 (52.9%) 9: 7 (56.3%) 6: 5 (54.5%) 15 87.1% 10: 7 (58.8%) 8: 6 (57.1%) 8: 5 (61.5%) 6: 2 (75.0%) ================================================================================ Total 81:62 (56.6%) 70:59 (54.3%) 67:53 (55.8%) 52:36 (59.1%) What I did was to compute scores based on data prior to the whole basho day (not yet taking into account results of previous matches on the current day, that wouldn't be practically usable for a betting game anyway I guess). If the difference between both scores was smaller than 52.5:47.5 (5%), 55:45 (10%) or 60:40 (20%) I eliminated the bet from the corresponding columns and treated it as "too close to call" as these scores aren't more informative than a coin flip (the closest one I got was for Bushuyama M10E/5 [565] over Chiyohakuho M16W/7 [563] on Day 12). But this even reduced the percentage as the coin flips for the 14 closest calls went 11:3 in my favor... and ignoring the 10-20% range eliminates too many bets while in fact improving the rate quite a bit. "Information" is "((Day-1) /15)

Would the Kyokai even have to tell their rikishi to "go all out" if they had a ranking system that didn't create lots of situations where a win means almost everything for one opponent and almost nothing for the other? The huge importance of the kachikoshi creates so many situations where it's just reasonable not to go all out and be 'cooperative' instead, from the perspective of game theory. Then again, sekitori aren't supposed to act reasonably, they are supposed to act honorably... still I think the whole situation is mostly homemade by the banzuke mechanism. If they'd change that, they'd eliminate most of the 'friendliness'. There's that Itai claiming in court these days to have done yaocho. Watching his stats before he became Komosubi made me aware of something: 03/1983: M13E 8-7 (+16 pos for +1 wins) 05/1983: M05E 6-9 (- 7 pos for -2 wins) 07/1983: M08W 8-7 (+ 5 pos for +1 wins) 09/1983: M06E 8-7 (+ 9 pos for +1 wins) 11/1983: M01W 5-10 (-12 pos for -3 wins) 01/1984: M07W 8-7 (+11 pos for +1 wins, that's 43:47 wins but M13E up to M02E) 03/1984: M02E 2-13 05/1984: M13E 9-6 (+11 pos for +2 wins) 07/1984: M07W 9-6 (+10 pos for +2 wins) 09/1984: M02W 6-9 (-11 pos for -2 wins) 11/1984: M08E 8-7 (+ 7 pos for +1 wins) 01/1985: M04W 6-9 (- 7 pos for -2 wins) 03/1985: M08E 9-6 (+10 pos for +2 wins) 05/1985: M03E 5-10 (- 8 pos for -3 wins) 07/1985: M07E 7-8 (- 4 pos for -1 wins) 09/1985: M09E 8-7 (+13 pos for +1 wins, that's 67:68 wins but M13E up to M02E) 11/1985: M02W 2-8-4 01/1986: M13W 0-0-15 03/1986: M13W 9-6 (+14 pos for +2 wins) 05/1986: M06W 9-6 (+11 pos for +2 wins) 07/1986: M01E 2-13 (-22 pos for -6 wins, that's 20:25 wins but M13W up to M12E) 09/1986: M12E 10-5 (+18 pos for +3 wins) 11/1986: M03E 5-10 (-15 pos for -3 wins) 01/1987: M10W 9-6 (+15 pos for +2 wins) 03/1987: M03E 4-11 (-15 pos for -4 wins, that's 28:32 wins but M12E up to M10W) 05/1987: M10W 8-7 (+12 pos for +1 wins) 07/1987: M04W 6-9 (-11 pos for -2 wins) 09/1987: M10E 9-6 (+16 pos for +2 wins) 11/1987: M02E 4-11 (-16 pos for -4 wins) 01/1988: M10E 8-7 (+12 pos for +1 wins) 03/1988: M04E 6-9 (- 7 pos for -2 wins) 05/1988: M07W 8-7 (+10 pos for +1 wins, that's 49:57 wins but M10W up to M02W!) 07/1988: M02W 3-12 09/1988: M11E 9-6 (+13 pos for +2 wins) 11/1988: M04W 3-12 (-12 pos for -5 wins) 01/1989: M10W 8-7 (+ 7 pos for +1 wins, that's 20:25 wins but M11E up to M07E) 03/1989: M07E 11-4 In every single period he lost more matches than he won, and still climbed up the banzuke every time. Apparently it wasn't really about winning matches back in his days. Kachikoshis were rewarded excessively, high makekoshis weren't that much of a deal. Apart from retirements, the banzuke is supposed to be a zero-sum game, and those get "banzuke luck" do that at the expense of their fellow rikishi. But if you noticed that, wouldn't you be tempted to "trade wins" with some of your fellow rikishi to "seesaw through the banzuke"? Regardless what actually happened, Itai did that ride very efficient, making no less than ten 8-7 kachikoshi but just one 7-8 makekoshi. Very efficient, to say the least.

@Doitsuyama: I see why such a test would be meaningful. Then again, my method doesn't work this way, as it isn't meant to predict results but to make given results more transparent. My problem is that the value of an opponent grows throughout a basho, as his genkiness depends on the sum of his wins of the whole basho (not just of the basho up to the match, or else all matches of Day 1 would be worthless), i. e. including future matches of the opponents you already defeated. Which means that after Day 10, not only do I know a mere 10/15 of the information about all wins for each sekitori this tournament, I also know a mere 10/15 of information of all opponent genkiness values, meaning that I know a mere 100/225 = 44% of information about the strength of each sekitori after 66% of the basho - the information growth during a basho isn't linear. And obviously after Day 1 all sekitori would have a strength value of zero because they either lost their first match or defeated an opponent with genkiness 0.... So if I were to predict individual matches I would need a much more complex approach, then incrementally changing the strength formula from day to day, e. g. initializing with a value based on, say, a genkiness of 7.5 (or rather a genkiness that I'd calculate from this sekitori's previous results, adapting his scores from previous bashos to his new banzuke rank - see below) and then slowly increasing the weight of the (still mostly meaningless, see above) value during the running basho from 0% to 100%. But starting with 7.5 wins for everyone would mean to predict the matches during the first half of the basho mostly on banzuke rank alone, which doesn't look that innovative... How could I reasonably predict the number of wins at the start of a basho? Perhaps by assuming the sekitori might get about the same score as in his previous basho, as the score is meant to express his capability. How would that work? A M12E like Yoshikaze made relatively constant scores of around 700 points throughout the year 2008 (for details see below), only now to win 11 matches and get a surprising score of 1169 (which might be an overperformance or a jump in quality, nobody knows for sure). Let's assume he will become M03W and then predict that he will still be worth more than 1000 points in the next basho (something like a weighted average over the last year) - how many wins would that equal? In Hatsu Tochinonada M03W/5 got 1052 points, in Haru Toyonoshima M03W/6 got 1198 points, in Natsu Kakuryu M03W/5 got 1090 points, in Nagoya Tochinonada M03W/7 got 2008 points (beating Kotomitsuki O1W/11=517 and Chiyotaikai O2W/9=405 plus five more opponents for 1086 points), in Aki Wakanoho M03W/0 didn't participate, in Kyushu Hokutoriki M03W/5 got 1149 points. So for January 2009 I might initialize Yoshikaze with a predicted genkiness of 5 wins from M03W and start from there. I could place him on M03E as well but none of the six performers this year were even close to 1200 points, most of them were much stronger, so my comparison would be less accurate (I can't just take a sekitori with 2000 points and divide his number of wins by 2 because this one got much stronger opponents during the basho, as you see in the case of Tochinonada in Nagoya) while I'd still guess something like 5 wins for Yoshikaze. Actually that's quite optimistic as my 2008 score table with basho weights from 5 to 10 would give Yoshikaze an average of 798 points for 2008. Did we have that already for a M03? Yes, in Hatsu Goeido M03E/5 got 866 points, in Nagoya Futeno M03E/3 got 873 points (beating Kotomitsuki O1W/11). So assuming Kyusho was an overperformance based on the whole year's data, one might rather initialize Yoshikaze with a predicted genkiness of a mere 4 wins. Nevertheless, your test idea is interesting. I'll do the test for Days 10-15 for the current basho and post the results here. =========== @Sasanishiki: Yes, I'm aware that this "virtual banzuke" wording might cause confusion. It's just that my original intention was to find out who might have shown "ozeki performance" in 2008 thus I ended up "replacing" some of the ozekis by other sekitori whereas a simple numerical ranking list might be better comprehensible (as I ignore the ozeki qualification procedure anyway). Then again, if I want to see whose potential shown in 2008 is greater than his current banzuke position I'd have to convert both into a common ordering system anyway, and making a "virtual banzuke" was just one of the two possible ways of doing this. The numbers for 2008 (top 30 positions): Pos.Score Wins Banzuke Sekitori Hatsu[5] Haru[6] Natsu[7] Nagoya[8] Aki[9] Kyushu[10] --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- _1. 3981 79 Y1-E Hakuho 4221/14 3446/12 2770/11 4499/15 4401/14 4238/13+1 _2. 3098 61 S1-E Ama 2692/ 9 2139/ 8 2456/ 9 2971/10 3560/12 4012/13 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- _3. 2429 55 O1-E Kotomitsuki 1803/ 8 2639/ 8 2218/ 8 3053/11 2843/11 1890/ 9 _4. 2379 51 M04-E Kisenosato 2642/10 2034/ 8 3137/10 1692/ 6 1481/ 6 3283/11 _5. 2121 50 O2-W Kotooshu 2567/ 9 382/ 2 4115/14 2003/ 9 2075/ 8 1683/ 8 _6. 2048 43 K1-W Aminishiki 998/ 5 2018/ 6 2715/10 1385/ 6 2056/ 8 2647/ 8 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- _7. 1972 51 S1-W Baruto 1196/ 7 2633/12 1153/ 5 2158/10 1970/ 8 2389/ 9 _8. 1958 48 M01-E Toyonoshima 1305/ 6 1198/ 6 2381/11 2615/10 1479/ 6 2348/ 9 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- _9. 1883 46 M03-E Kotoshogiku 2470/ 9 2410/ 8 1782/ 8 1528/ 6 1418/ 6 2048/ 9 10. 1865 39 O2-E Chiyotaikai 0/ 0 2476/ 8 1533/ 5 2315/ 9 2270/ 9 1937/ 8 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 11. 1785 43 O1-W Kaio 1771/ 8 2362/ 8 2306/ 8 2055/ 9 2512/ 9 210/ 1 12. 1726 45 Y1-W Asashoryu 3571/13 3891/13 3021/11 544/ 3 1218/ 5 0/ 0 13. 1643 49 M06-W Kyokutenho 1566/10 2098/ 9 1126/ 4 1523/10 1374/ 6 2109/10 14. 1620 43 K1-E Goeido 866/ 5 1354/ 8 1413/ 8 1822/ 7 2499/10 1350/ 5 15. 1578 43 M07-E Miyabiyama 1565/ 7 1813/ 7 1333/ 6 2076/ 9 1011/ 4 1728/10 16. 1564 41 M05-E Asasekiryu 2100/10 1917/ 8 1622/ 6 1956/ 8 1425/ 4 853/ 5 17. 1326 39 M09-W Tokitenku 1336/ 6 1896/ 7 1438/ 6 1447/ 7 1004/ 6 1093/ 7 18. 1299 42 M06-E Kakuryu 1850/11 1333/ 6 1090/ 5 1286/ 8 1629/ 7 864/ 5 19. 1265 42 M02-W Wakanosato 1264/ 7 951/ 5 1382/10 1041/ 5 1282/ 9 1537/ 6 20. 1263 46 M08-E Takekaze 2404/12 814/ 3 790/ 6 1075/ 7 1152/ 9 1545/ 9 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 21. 1197 42 M03-W Hokutoriki 1222/ 7 1596/ 8 1825/10 654/ 4 964/ 8 1149/ 5 22. 1173 46 M01-W Futeno 922/ 8 1270/10 1577/ 9 873/ 3 1424/11 970/ 5 23. 1150 40 M07-W Tochinonada 1052/ 5 1144/ 8 1233/ 9 2008/ 7 1093/ 6 510/ 5 24. 1122 46 M11-E Kokkai 1546/ 9 2593/12 641/ 3 584/ 5 657/ 8 1211/ 9 25. 992 47 M14-E Takamisakari 882/ 8 1266/10 1085/ 7 752/ 6 591/ 6 1369/10 26. 979 45 M09-E Tochiozan 829/ 8 1386/11 705/ 5 1214/ 9 1174/ 6 637/ 6 27. 872 38 M05-W Dejima 395/ 3 871/ 6 994/ 8 751/ 6 1170/ 9 856/ 6 28. 846 42 M08-W Kakizoe 739/ 6 602/ 8 758/ 6 771/ 7 1175/10 873/ 5 29. 798 37 M15-W Homasho 607/ 4 733/ 9 1398/ 9 1645/ 9 0/ 0 554/ 6 30. 798 47 M12-E Yoshikaze 746/ 8 624/ 6 686/ 7 648/ 8 752/ 7 1169/11 "Scores" here are weighted averages, weights given next to basho name. All data input manually, so errors are possible.