Gurowake

Are K/Ginboshi worth 7/5 extra points, or that many points total?

Hmm, Yokozuna tend to be retiring much younger than they used to. I had thought it was the other way for some reason.

I am heavily considering purchasing the (vastly overpriced) Ustream ticket for the purposes of watching all the lower division bouts, and it's going to be between semesters for me (for the most part) and I certainly would consider attempting to put in the work to get at least the non-Makuuchi bouts available in the same way araibira has done (although probably not until they are archived by Ustream after the day is over; live is in the middle of the night here), but I have absolutely no clue how to do so. I generally am able to learn things well if I'm given decent instructions, but I don't have any experience in video editing or recording or anything else like that and have no idea where to begin. I'm also unsure if my computer will be able to handle it as it's got a few years on it and I don't do much of anything that back-breaking on it. I could just try to use Google and find out what I could, but given that I'm preparing for finals this week I don't have tons of free time to waste trying to figure this stuff out. If I can get good, clear specifications and instructions on how to do something similar to whatever arabira had been doing, I'd definitely be willing to purchase the stream (which I might do anyway) and put in the work to get it done.

A couple questions. The first is more of a general question with respect to the use of "until" in these conditions. This is a somewhat non-standard use and I'm not sure if it means "on Day 11 or earlier" or "before day 11" or something else entirely. The second one I have no idea what it means other than maybe that there will be a day having something to do with 8 kinds of kimarite. Are there 8 categories of kimarite that need to be used at least once? Or just 8 different named ones? Is it Makuuchi only, sekitori only, or possibly the entire tournament? Do the last few words mean that each of them need to be used at least twice?

Is there any preregistration necessary for Tipspiel? I finally noticed the English rules and can understand what's going on there, but looking at the French rules it seemed like there were things not in the English rules and my French isn't good enough to figure out everything. I see a Kosho thread, but I don't know if I have to actively sign up or just submit my picks on the first day.

It's the same as it ever was for me; I already sent a message to Doitsuyama about it. Apparently new players can't be added automatically, but there's also no way to know that or to request that you want to play. I already missed last basho because I found a way to get to the entry page, make an entry, and get a confirmation email, all without actually being registered to play.

1. Kakuryu 2. Kotoshogiku

Tochinowaka's account is interesting because of how many times he's moved in and out of Juryo and Makuuchi while constantly not having accumulated enough to avoid getting the minimum upon repromotion. Here's what I think theoretically should have happened based on http://www.achimp.de/kyuukin.htm and his DB history. Earned 104 in lower divisions. Promoted to Juryo, bumped to 160 Earned 68 in Juryo, total 228, of which 172 earned Promoted to Makuuchi, bumped to 240 Earned 20 in Makuuchi, total 260, of which 192 earned Demoted to Juryo, reset to 192 Earned 22 in Juryo, total and earned 214 Promoted to Makuuchi, bumped to 240 Earned 2 in Makuuchi, total 242, earned 216 Demoted to Juryo, reset to 216 Earned 20 in Juryo, total and earned 236 Promoted to Makuuchi, bumped to 240 Earned 18 in Makuuchi, total 258, earned 254 Notice that there's 22 earned in Makuuchi that according to the above website should not have been added to the minimum amount when he got repromoted; whoever was calculating it previously may have merely looked at his Makuuchi KKs in determining how much above the minimum his account should be at. Now it is correct. I'm not sure how frequent this kind of thing happens; I suppose you need to come up through the ranks fairly fast, but end up settling in the bottom of Makuuchi/top of Juryo while getting at least a few KKs in Makuuchi. It seems reasonable that some employee (or possibly even computer program) was told how to calculate it slightly incorrectly and under most circumstances it would work fine, but in this particular case it doesn't quite work.

I keep looking and hope to find some smidgen of hope that the lower division banzuke process has some logical foundation, but on the Aki banzuke I found this: Ms40w Aozora 4-3 -> Ms31w Ms16e Bungonishiki 2-5 -> Ms32w Ms17w Kasugakuni 2-5 -> Ms34e Ms41w Chiyosakae 4-3 -> Ms34w Generally rikishi with the same record that are promoted will land in theory no further apart than they were previously as it gets harder to get large promotions as one increases in rank, subject to general banzuke crowding and such. Similarly, rikishi with the same record that are demoted should be, excluding thinning from lack of appropriately ranked rikishi, no closer together than they were previously. There may be exceptions at the extremes and obviously plenty of absolute exceptions due to banzuke luck, but the relative positions should follow that guideline anywhere in the middle if they're being determined rationally. But here we have some space between 4-3s, 1 rank apart previously, being filled by two 2-5s, 1.5 ranks apart previously. I can find no logical basis for determining that both of the 2-5s deserve to be ranked between the two 4-3s. Even looking at their match details, it doesn't look like Kasugakuni had a noticeably hard schedule or Chiyosakae had an noticeably easy schedule, both losing their first match and winning their second, with Kasugakuni's opponents only winning one more match after their bout than Chiyosakae's (11 vs. 10, both average given 21 such matches). Even if that one match made a difference to how they should be ranked, it seems absolutely minimal compared to the fact that given their previous relative positions with respect to others with their records they should be ranked in the other order. How can a 4-3 Ms40w outrank a 2-5 Ms16e but a 2-5 Ms17w outranks a 4-3 Ms41w? This may have been something the rest of the community figured out long ago, but I find it extremely disconcerting. As someone studying to be an accountant and learning about the auditing process and the consideration of the internal controls on output processes, I don't think these guys could get a good opinion if their processes were audited. Their decisions are affecting the career paths of the rikishi, and I should think that they would want to be held accountable for the process by having clear guidelines established. It almost seems as though they do some things just to say "Look what we can do that you would have never considered. Stop trying to figure us out." Hopefully this is the last I will ever say on this matter.

Jd83w Takunoumi

Jd91e Byakkomaru

Jd41e Aoto

Jd40w Takiguchi

Jd13e Hamaguchi as much as it pains me to pick the same rikishi in two different waves, this is just the obvious choice. (He's probably the best choice in the wave that I'm around sd90 as well, but that's way beyond how I want to play this game.)

Jk21w Suekawa

Jd82w Sadahikari

Jd13e Hamaguchi

Jd69w Takumi

Sd93e Sato Replacement due to kyujo of above: sd96w Hiroshima

I never really looked at these pictures particularly closely before, but looking at where the rikishi are pointing combined with the knowledge of where they are ranked, it appears as though, in keeping with the right-to-left traditional way of reading, that the more prestigious side is at the right of the paper, and that when they get translated for left-to-right readers they flip the sides so that the more prestigious side is still the first one encountered in reading. I always had assumed that they were presented with the same left-right relation regardless of reading direction. This also fits better with the sense that north is up and thus east is right and west is left. I never really noticed how it's seemingly backwards for left-to-right readers who take north as up.

I don't see what the big deal over Tochiozan is. My GTB entry had him ranked 8w, one step lower than he ended up, and if I hadn't been so optimistic about Ichinojo's debut position I'd have had him exactly right. The two most recent 2 win sekiwakes who withdrew were both Tochiazuma, and while he ended up ranked much higher than Tochiozan is now, after looking at the banzuke in both cases he fit exactly where he deserved to be in relation to the other rikishi; in both cases they were really stretching to fill those spots just below him. With Tochiozan, who should he have definitely been ranked higher than based solely on the results? Ok, he probably falls to about the same spot as Aminishiki, Shohozan, and Chiyootori if you count the sanyaku ranks as worth 2 Maegashira ranks, but under the apparent guiding principle for this banzuke the rikishi with the better result gets the better spot, as evident by Tokushoryu vs. Kagamio, Azumaryu vs. Kyokushuho, and Chiyotairyu vs. Terunofuji, they all get ranked higher than him. Now he's clearly a better rikishi than those 3 mentioned, but the banzuke making process is quite clearly not about who is the better rikishi, but who has performed the best recently. So really the main complaints are more like "Why do they treat guys that get injured so harshly?" The Kyokai's decision to treat an absence as a loss is fully understandable from the perspective of looking at actual recent achievements. There also is some merit to the belief that just being injured causes a potential loss in ability as a rikishi; serious injuries many times do not fully heal and even if the pain goes away there may be some movement restriction or loss of strength. The abolishment of the kosho rule shows they have absolutely no sympathy for those who get hurt, and the apparent lack of safety features around the dohyo* shows they just don't care about the health of the individual rikishi; if some guy gets hurt, someone else will just take his place.

Having done enough research to try to make sense of the lower division banzuke process, this absolutely is the case. For the Makuuchi banzuke I was generally leaning more towards "Old men arguing about who's better", but this time it's so disgusting that it's far easier to just ascribe it to incompetence. They probably have one guy work on it for 15 minutes, go over it making sure its consistent, but don't bother with whether it's actually fair.

That's just not true. It's easily possible to arrange it so that everybody in the J1-J5 area receives roughly equal shares of the bad banzuke luck, instead of dumping almost all of it on Tochinoshin and Tosayutaka.And more generally speaking, to dump bad banzuke luck on the best-performing rikishi involved in a crunch is pretty stupid in its own right. Guess they haven't learned anything from the yaocho scandal. Yeah, some people have to get screwed somehow, but it makes more sense to screw everyone a little than one guy a lot, unless as mentioned above they have reasons to dislike the guy they're dumping. Asashosakari and I independently came up with guesses for Juryo that I think were 5 one-space swaps off. The actual results differ from those guesses by far more, and mainly with respect to the two mentioned rikishi: we had Tochinoshin in Makuuchi and Tosayutaka ahead of Gagamaru, Shotenro, and Sotairyu. Given the general pattern of how things go, there really shouldn't be any reason why Tosayutaka should be ranked behind those guys. It only makes sense if they literally don't have any boundaries whatsoever at making their decisions besides the obvious. Of course, there are arguments to be made that financially you're better off getting poor banzuke luck so long as you're not in line for promotion. If Tochinoshin can make it back to sanyaku the few ranks might have cost him one basho, but that's probably 3 basho off at least that he'll have somewhat weaker opponents to make up for it and be generating more mochikyuin credits than he otherwise would have. And the prize money for the Juryo Yusho more than makes up for the missed Makuuchi salary.

I did not know there were random perks to being Ozeki like "being able to enter and leave through the basement parking area at Ryogoku Kokugikan." That seems extremely odd. Does anyone know what other kinds of things there are that are alluded to in that article?

1-6. A 7-8. X 9. B 10. X 11-12. B 13. A 14. B 15-17. X 18-19. B 20-21. A