Invitation to Play GTB - May 2025 - 149 entries so far, 7 days left to enter

[Kintamayama 45,503]

There's that game. A fantasy sumo game. It's  GTB, or "Guess the Banzuke" if you will.. I promise you blood, sweat and tears.

This is a formal invitation to play the "Guess the Banzuke" game!! 27 years, 163 bashos or so. Please play. It's a free for all.

Game rules: Guess the Banzuke. Simple. You get two points for a bulls-eye and one point for just getting the rank right. You get no points for expecting a Houshouryuu yusho in his first tournament as a Yokozuna... Tiebreakers - Most total guesses, then we check the banzuke backwards - getting the lower half right will be important.  The most correct guesses in the last ten places will win the tiebreaker. If still tied we go up a ranking at a time like a penalty shootout. If still tied, the earliest entry wins. If still tied, the player who can recite Shakespeare's "Hamlet" by heart in Latin wins.. This includes all genders - we do not discriminate. It's up to you to check if you are on the list of entries. It's going to be your fault if you don't notice that your entry went missing in the Internet void. No late entries will be expected or accepted. Those are the rules, and the rules will never be changed. 2B or not 2B.

For rules, standings and another yokozuna run: http://www.dichne.com/Guess.htm

For the nifty entry form, which will hopefully continue to do what it's intended to do :http://sumodb.sumogames.de/gtb/GTBEntry.aspx

For Chiyotasuke's incredible helper: https://gtbhelper.vercel.app

For the "new" archives:http://sumodb.sumogames.de/gtb/gtbarchive.aspx

See if you are on the entry list: http://sumodb.sumogames.de/gtb/GTBEntryList.aspx

Deadline: Monday, April 21st, 2025  at 18:00 GMT ("Go Make Tea") - PLEASE NOTE-THIS IS ONE WEEK BEFORE THE OFFICIAL BANZUKE ANNOUNCEMENT!!

Special thanks to showrunners Andoreasu, Wizard Doitsuyama for everything else, and all of you who wish to participate

***MESSAGE: Please note that as you probably found out by now, the confirmation e-mail thing is not working, so I suggest a screen capture for now for those of you who wish to save their guesses.

Edited 8 hours ago by Kintamayama

[Suwihuto 133]

I got a confirmation instantly yesterday...

Also, there are about 8,000 plausible combinations I discovered. And that's just for M9-M11.

Edited March 26 by Suwihuto

[Asashosakari 19,648]

I'm presently looking at bringing my local GTB archives up to speed (after some five years...), and I have a few questions about players:

• Player ID 1364 is a new entrant apparently without a name; the selection dropdown in the archives just has a space, while the Haru 2025 results on the main site say "none" (in rank 209). That's a bit awkward...
• Is the Hohoho from 25 years ago really the same as the one who has been playing since 2021 such that all results should be credited to a single profile?
• There are currently two un-disambiguated "Konishiki" in the list, one player who quickly changed to a different name a decade ago, and a new one who has been using the name consistently the last few years.
• Another doubled-up name is "Inazuma", briefly used by Feginowaka back in the day and by a different player in 2022.
• Likely the same player:
  • 528 Andrasoyamawaka (2010.03, 2015.01) and 952 Andrasoyama (2022.07), despite the large gap in time; made the same shikona change in other games
  • 826 ANENEMYBRAND (2021.05/.07) and 862 ANEMEMYBRAND (2021.09)
  • 776 Demon Taka (occasionally from 2020.09 to today) and 800 Demon Taka >:3 (2021.01)
  • 916 "intarga " (with a space at the end, 2022.03) and 940 intarga (no space, since 2022.05)
• Maaaybe the same player:
  • 1048 Orandayama (2023.09 to 2024.05) and 1302 Orandanoyama (2025.01)
  • 369 Saruwatari (2005.05 to 2011.07) and 731 Saruwatari II (2020.01 to today) - or is that an intentionally separate "second career"?
  • Is 52 Kawika (1999.09) = 929 maeden (2022.03) like in Bench Sumo? (But does it even matter with 23 years apart...)

Some old ones that I may or may not have asked about before:

• 209 Empi (2003.01) and 326 Empiryu (2004.11 to 2006.05)
• 431 Fatakiyama (2006 to recently) and 466 Fata (2007.03 only, corresponds to a gap in Fatakiyama's records)
• 451 Fay (2006.09, 2007.05-.09) and 462 Kotonowaka_Fay (2006.11-2007.01)
• 473 Seb (2007.05 to 2008.09) and 517 Sebunshu (2009.05 to 2012.05)
• 257 Vincentoryu (2003.11 to 2005.07) and 339 Vincentohana (2005.01 only, corresponds to a gap in Vincentoryu's records)

Lastly, the pages for players whose only score was 0-15 do not display the record column (947, 1200, 1423 and several more - 840 even with two 0-15).

Edited April 4 by Asashosakari

[Asashosakari 19,648]

On another note...the other week somebody on a Discord server linked to the Natsu banzuke guess by BBM-sha's "Sumo" magazine; I hadn't been aware that these are getting posted on the internet. My first thought was, "hey, maybe we should feature these as guest entries in the game, like in the old days" (Nikkan, Yomiuri, Ozumo). The second thought was, "what if somebody's already been submitting them all along?" After all, awareness of GTB certainly extends to Japan. So I went and checked, and sure enough...those guesses are already part of the game. However, if you and I might have thought it's potentially the magazine journalist under pseudonym - that GTB player's first four entries were still very different from the magazine predictions, and only then became identical. So in all likelihood it's just somebody who's been taking a shortcut because they found their own efforts to be lacking in quality.

(I'm not going to expose their name, but I will say that they had one top 10 result with a magazine guess, and afterwards they briefly featured in the overall top 10, ironically at a time when their 6-basho tally still included some of their own work.)

[Jakusotsu 6,047]

2 hours ago, Asashosakari said:

257 Vincentoryu (2003.11 to 2005.07) and 339 Vincentohana (2005.01 only, corresponds to a gap in Vincentoryu's records)

These two are definitely different players.

[Reonito 1,518]

11 hours ago, Asashosakari said:

On another note...the other week somebody on a Discord server linked to the Natsu banzuke guess by BBM-sha's "Sumo" magazine; I hadn't been aware that these are getting posted on the internet. My first thought was, "hey, maybe we should feature these as guest entries in the game, like in the old days" (Nikkan, Yomiuri, Ozumo). The second thought was, "what if somebody's already been submitting them all along?" After all, awareness of GTB certainly extends to Japan. So I went and checked, and sure enough...those guesses are already part of the game. However, if you and I might have thought it's potentially the magazine journalist under pseudonym - that GTB player's first four entries were still very different from the magazine predictions, and only then became identical. So in all likelihood it's just somebody who's been taking a shortcut because they found their own efforts to be lacking in quality.

(I'm not going to expose their name, but I will say that they had one top 10 result with a magazine guess, and afterwards they briefly featured in the overall top 10, ironically at a time when their 6-basho tally still included some of their own work.)

I haven't tried to puzzle out the kanji in the guess, but the (google-translated) writeup seems reasonably informed.

[Asashosakari 19,648]

Yeah, the magazine writer's opinions and the resulting guesses are broadly pretty good (though not infallible - a recent prediction went MK in GTB for the player who has been appropriating them), but they're clearly not made from any sort of insider position, which is why I thought they could make a good addition to the game if submitted with proper disclosure. I'm actually sort of tempted to submit them anyway, just on the off-chance that it would deservedly screw that player out of the yusho via the earlier entry tie-breaker if a magazine prediction ever turns out to be that good.

Edited April 4 by Asashosakari

[Randomitsuki 2,843]

Some educated guesses:

Pretty sure about Andrasoyama and Andrasoyamawaka being the same person. 

Pretty sure about Saruwatari (and II) being the same person although I don't know whether he deliberately wants to see the two careers separately. 

Fatakiyama is not Fata, I'd say. EDIT: Ok, if it's the only gap in his career, then I'll retract my hunch...

Fay and Kotonowaka_Fay can be confirmed as being the same lady.

I don't think that Seb and Sebunshu are identical.

And I'm with Jakusotsu that Vincentohana and Vincentoryu are different people.

Edited April 4 by Randomitsuki

[Tigerboy1966 1,474]

Just posted my entry. I am predicting a low scoring contest as too many placings that rely on "gut feeling". Least bad entry wins!

[Reonito 1,518]

3 hours ago, Tigerboy1966 said:

Just posted my entry. I am predicting a low scoring contest as too many placings that rely on "gut feeling". Least bad entry wins!

If they follow the approach they took after January, it shouldn't be too bad, even though it is pretty crowded for about a dozen ranks in the middle. But then that was a considerable departure from the prior two banzuke.

[Kintamayama 45,503]

A week to go. Gambarize!