Gurowake

If he had trained at both heya, he would have a better explanation that would presumably be closer to the truth regarding the coaching style of the shisho. I think the bigger question would be why would it even be between those two and ignoring those heya run by rikishi he would have actually watched as a kid, if that was going to be his explanation?

Musoyama retired in 2004. If this kid is coming out of high school, he wasn't born yet then. I guess he just saw old clips?

Not that it matter, but Onosho is on the banzuke at Ms3e.

It's also quite a different error than we had been dealing with previously, suggesting that something new is going wrong. I don't know enough about HTML error codes to know exactly what it means that the service is unavailable, but the fact it's not 404 and still have the gunbai icon on the page suggests that it still exists in some form but the server that is supposed to serve the web page is not working.

62, with the differences between me and Asashosakari going: Correct with Takerufuji <> Nishikigi offsetting wrong with Gonoyama <> Tobizaru -4 for wrong on Chiyoshoma <> Hiradoumi and Daieisho <> Wakamotoharu

People generally are putting Takayasu and Ichiyamamoto at M6. If they are in your section as you show it, who's at M6? Churanoumi and Oshoma I guess?

That it seems like most people have done basically the same thing in the problem areas heavily suggests that there really isn't any other conceivable thing they'd do. That doesn't help much though because they regularly do things inconceivable prior to it actually happening.

Sanyaku race: There's one sure spot open from Shodai, and Kirishima might open up another one, so two possible spots. These will almost certainly be taken by Wakatakakage and/or Abi; no one else has much hope based on the decision to promote Shodai last tournament; it's unlikely Takanosho will get the nod even if he ends up with the best rank/record numbers since he faced very few joi rikishi. For Takanosho to have a chance he needs to win both matches and have both of the other candidates lose both matches. Abi is slightly in the lead right now. Both of them have good enough scores that they should be promoted to Sekiwake at the expense of Kirishima if he gets exactly 7 wins. Thus everyone that has a chance at sanyaku next tournament also has a chance at Sekiwake, though the first open spot would generally go to Wakamotoharu, so both maegashira candidates likely can't get there at the same time, but if Abi wins both his matches, and maybe even Wakatakakage, they might get a single open spot ahead of Wakamotoharu if he doesn't get another win. It has happened before, but requires a very large difference in score and not a large difference in rank; what we'd have here in the most extreme case is somewhat in the middle. So it might happen, but I wouldn't expect it right now.

Terunofuji(0-0 Ye) Y Kotozakura(14-1 Oe) O Hoshoryu(13-2 Ow) O Onosato(9-6 Ow) Daieisho(8-7 Sw) S Wakamotoharu(10-5 Ke) Abi(11-4 M3e) K Wakatakakage(10-5 M2e) Takanosho(11-4 M6e) M1 Kirishima(6-9 Se) Gonoyama(11-4 M8w) M2 Atamifuji(8-7 M3w) Tobizaru(9-6 M5e) M3 Oho(6-9 M1e) Shodai(4-11 Kw) M4 Ura(5-10 M2w) Chiyoshoma(11-4 M14e) M5 Hiradoumi(4-11 M1w) Takayasu(8-7 M9w) M6 Ichiyamamoto(8-7 M10e) Endo(7-8 M7e) M7 Mitakeumi(7-8 M7w) Roga(7-8 M8e) M8 Takarafuji(8-7 M10w) Tamawashi(8-7 M11e) M9 Midorifuji(7-8 M9e) Meisei(8-7 M11w) M10 Churanoumi(4-11 M4e) Oshoma(4-11 M4w) M11 Takerufuji(10-5 M16w) Nishikigi(5-10 M6w) M12 Onokatsu(9-6 M15e) Shonannoumi(8-7 M13w) M13 Hokutofuji(7-8 M12e) Kinbozan(12-3 J1w) M14 Kotoshoho(3-11 M5w) Hakuoho(10-5 J2w) M15 Kitanowaka(9-6 J1e) Tamashoho(10-5 J4e) M16 Kagayaki(9-6 J2e) Nishikifuji(6-9 M14w) M17 Tokihayate(6-9 M15w) I think there's 4 swaps from Asashosakari's - the two that he said Spiffy had, plus Gonoyama <> Tobizaru and Chiyoshoma <> Hiradoumi

On that image with Terunofuji on it, the writing on the top left I was very confused about, as it makes no sense when read left to right, then top to bottom. I eventually realized that's because it's written top to bottom, then right to left, as is traditional in Japanese, despite all the other writing on the image going with the other pattern. I think it was the placement of the full stop that made me realize I needed to reorient my reading of it.

Hakuyozan J11w

I know this would be harder to compile, but it might be slightly more meaningful to exclude people who haven't completed 2 tournaments on the banzuke, to not have heya with more recent recruits (who need generally 2 tournaments to get out of this range) show up with more rikishi here than they would long-term. The Hatsu-dohyo column from the database would likely be helpful in determining this. It would make it slightly more interesting, but probably not enough for me to be interested in doing myself. (I would be interested in the average percentile banzuke rank for each heya though, so maybe I could figure out how to do that easily.)

Intended as a repository of pointless bits of trivia I or others find, particularly while browsing the database. It happens a lot between basho. In a total of 5 basho since the 15-day era began, the last match was between two undefeated rikishi. Twice it was Taiho vs. Kashiwado, and they split the matches. All matches featured Y1e. No such match was a playoff (theoretically possible between stable members). Harumafuji is the only one to appear in such a bout that was not a Yokozuna at the time. No other Day-15 matches involving 2 14-0 rikishi have occurred. In Haru 1996, there was a 6-0 match in Jonidan on Day 15, but two other rikishi were also 7-0 from previous days. Incidentally, a few basho in each direction in that time period there were many Day-14 6-0 matches in the lower divisions, but none that basho and one on Day 15 instead. Only one Day-14 6-0 match took place outside that 1995-1996 window.

It's not very common for all top 4 Juryo rikishi to be promoted to Makuuchi, as is likely to happen on the next banzuke. There's 18 total in the database, and 11 of those are in the 6-basho era. However, it last happened after Kyushu last year, and when I saw the results of the query I failed to recognize that at first, thinking that a recent Kyushu basho was going to be the most recent because of last basho, when it really isn't because the next banzuke isn't out yet. http://sumodb.sumogames.de/Query.aspx?show_form=0&amp;group_by=basho&amp;having=4&amp;form1_rank=J1-J2&amp;form2_rank=m

I meant that they don't just first create an ordered list and then divide it up into divisions, which is what they apparently do when the divisions change size.

Given that we know that's not how they do banzuke normally, it's odd that they would do this when they're renumbering ranks, especially since they normally have set promotions from each division to the next. I do grant that the one think that's consistent about their approaches in unusual situations is that it's inconsistent.

Takayasu and Kotozakura are tied for the lead after the honwari matches. They start the kettei-sen for the Yusho and are both knocked out cold by the tachiai. There was no clear winner of the bout and neither can continue, so no one wins the Yusho. The NSK deliberates and gives them each half the prize and hoshokin points for the Yusho, and leaves it to others to decide how they want to record things for history. Takayasu retires, and the question will always remain if he really won a yusho.

I'd like to point out that at least part of this came to pass - Kotozakura was in a match on the last day where the winner would take the yusho. Too bad more of the prediction didn't hold once that was confirmed.

That's certainly very close to implying that it's one of the six major tournaments, yes. It seems to do everything but outright state it, and you'd definitely have to know otherwise to think to the contrary.

Is there anyone actually claiming that the tournament will have an effect on the rankings, or that it is equivalent to the 6-per-year tournaments in Japan? There's plenty of wiggle room with what exactly "official" means. It's being hosted directly by the Kyokai - seems official to me. Is it a tournament? Certainly. Only if they are saying specifically the things mentioned in my first sentence is there any issue. I'm not particularly familiar with truth in advertising laws in the UK, but generally in the US a degree of "puffery" is allowed - see just about every business who says they're the best in the area - as long as you don't say something that can't exactly be taken as an exaggeration, would have an effect on the choice of the targets, and is demonstrably wrong but not obviously so.

I was prompted by YBF's comment on how rare Komusubi Yusho were to search up all of them. It turns out that in the 6-basho era, every single Komusubi Yusho winner had it as their either 1st or 2nd basho in an Ozeki run. Just before the 6-basho era, in 1957, there was one failure, Annenyama (later known as Haguroyama). If you remove all the date restrictions there was another failure in 1932, but he might have made it eventually if he hadn't passed away a couple basho later (Okitsuumi). There were only two other Komusubi Yusho, so the pre-6-basho era had 2 failures and 2 successes, not much of a pattern compared to the 6-basho era ones. Also of note is that Musashiyama was promoted to Ozeki directly from Komusubi after the next tournament, and that wasn't even the last time that happened with the more recent one being even more ludicrous by today's standards with only 1 sanyaku basho, so clearly the rules were different when there were less basho per year.

Yoshikaze's is notable in that his low rank was not due to having failed to compete in previous tournaments. It's not all that strange that Goeido and WTK could manage it given they didn't get to M14e by bad performances on the dohyo, while that was why Yoshikaze was that low. I particularly remember his 5-10 the previous basho really stinging me in my games performance then. The 8-7 the basho before that was reasonable when returning from injury at a lower rank, but that 5-10 seemed so out of character; I can only imagine he was still suffering what whatever caused the withdraw a couple basho before, and then starting the next basho was back to full strength.

Reonito answered the question, but I'll address the struggling a way to compare the different results of bouts. In general, they are not comparable directly. That they seem to be doing so for the last few years when it comes to Juryo promotions is very strange. It's almost as if they wanted for there to not be any question of whether someone deserved a promotion compared to the available demotee and they picked a way that's easy for middle-school educated people to calculate that's not all too far off from what they have been doing in the past, though it's obviously a bit stingier than we're used to. Generally the results of the 7 match schedule result in a larger movement than the win - losses number suggests for sekitori, and the size of this rank expansion gets slowly larger as you go further down the banzuke. There's no real way to have any good idea where someone will end up without collecting data for where people similarly situated ended up. The task is somewhat simplified by there being fairly rigid requirements for promotion to Sandanme and Makushita from the division below, but that doesn't help too much for demotions, nor what exactly they will do at the top of Makushita.

More explanation of exactly what a koen is and how it differs from a jungyo might be helpful.

I'm going to be boring. Onosato Y Hoshoryu O Kotonowaka That's it. Aonishiki and Takerufuji will make it in mid-2026