Gurowake

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

M2e Takayasu K1e Jo(u)ko(u)ryu(u) M1w Endo(u)

Apparent Shikona changes: Tanahashi -> Inaburmaru sd35w Asaueno -> Asatodoroki sd77e Juban -> Banjaku sd80w Kaisho -> Kaiseio jd13w Kotokudo -> Kotorikisen jd21e Saito -> Kisensho jk22e Shusshin is not listed the same as what's in the DB for the last one, but there's little doubt it's the same rikishi.

So do they throw darts, or have a political back-and-forth give-and-take thing going on? Some of these decisions seem patently ludicrous and borderline inconsistent. It seems the only rule they won't break is having people in the same order as the previous banzuke if they get the same record, and ahead of anyone below them with a worse record. Everything else is up for debate, and identical situations in different parts of the banzuke will receive different treatment. I personally think the transparency in the process is way way too low; aren't they supposed to be basically a public institution now? Ah yes, their prejudice against foreign rikishi is clear now: they have to promote the sport for the Japanese and break every possible decision against the foreigners as much as possible. They have absolutely no duty to promote the sport beyond the borders of Japan, no matter how popular it gets with foreigners. They're as cold as ice and I'm hot blooded. It's urgent that they stop playing these head games. They should take a journey to Kansas via the river Styx.

I had to have an IV put into the back of my hand one time at the hospital because they couldn't get a vein in my arm. It's really easy to find one there, but it definitely hurts a hell of a lot more. I wasn't having a good day as it was, being in the hospital and such, but I wasn't in any real physical pain until that IV went in. And it wasn't just to draw blood, it was for an IV I would have all stay. Not very fun at all.

As much as I want to believe that a lot of thought gets put into banzuke making and that I just need to study it harder until it all starts to make sense, I have found situations that makes it fairly clear that they pretty much do it haphazardly, with no real controls on the process other than obvious things. Look at all the rikishi in mid-to-low Makushita who had 5-2 previous basho results for this banzuke. There's 2 ranks between ones from ms40 and ms48, but there are more ranks between those from the 50s than there were in the previous basho. There isn't a massive hole there either; everyone else is pretty much where they should be. It's as if someone just took a list of 5-2 rikishi and just threw them any old place in order with blatant disregard to the differences in previous rank between two adjacent rikishi. That's not to mention that the vast majority of time they drop people win 0 wins to an exact place, but sometimes they're one step off. How can the vast majority of the 0-win rikishi be exactly at the prescribed place while movement of the rest clearly have inherent randomness, yet there's these rare times they don't put them in the precise location according to formula but instead just barely off? I suspect they just make some uncorrectable mistakes somehow and do something that works with what's set in stone, and figure it's not a particularly big deal. Do they do absolutely everything according to a traditional method and don't use any of the technology they have available to them to make the process easier as well as easily reversible? As with the torikumi, it appears as though there's very faint guidelines but the people in charge of doing it don't seem particularly interested in spending a lot of time getting it as good as it could be and just go with something that works. Spending a lot of time trying to figure this stuff out has only made me realize how little time they must actually spend doing it. I wouldn't be surprised if more thought went into many sumo games banzuke than into the official one.

There are some very deceptive "advertisements" on that page that look like they're content of the site being presented. I'm not sure it's a good idea to visit a site that lets forgery-style ads be presented in the way they are.