Kashunowaka

Congrats @Andonishiki! I was awaiting the final result with some anticipation, but in the end putting Takakeisho on 9 points was too big a handicap.

Mea culpa!

It happened as late as July last year, but the instance before that was in 1966.

As far as I can see, three gino-sho winners is a first.

It's a good thing that this bout was essentially meaningless.

I also searched for my name several times before I realized that the tables were images.

I wonder what happens if Daieisho wins tomorrow and then gets say 12 wins next time from sekiwake? That would be 35 wins in three basho. Even though the first two were from M2/M1 he would have faced all the top rankers in each of these bashos, coupled with the feat of having defeated all of them in Hatsu. I'd sure hope that would be enough for ozeki promotion.

Let's remember that Shodai is in his second basho as ozeki after withdrawing with an injury from the first one, so we could count this as his real debut. With that in mind I would argue that he is doing very well and is exceeding the expectations of most people. Very few rikishi are ready to become yokozuna after just a few bashos as ozeki.

The interesting thing would be to see if there is any evidence of the opposite. It might just be a coincidence - after all, kachi-koshi records with absent days are not that common.

How about Kitaharima's henka against Wakayama? I can't say that I generally approve of henka, but I thought that was quite hilarious and well executed.

8 + 13 + 11 = 32 If Terunofuji had gone 12-3 this basho, I think that he would have been promoted to ozeki. It would be quite similar numbers compared to his last promotion, and I don't see why 8-5-2 would be treated differently than 8-7. They could decide to raise the bar for a second promotion like they did with Miyabiyama, but the latter had a really poor ozeki career compared to Terunofuji.

Asanoyama keeps repeating the same strategy over and over against Terunofuji. Their bouts have been remarkably similar since they are both trying to get the same migi-yotsu grip and then Terunofuji wins from there. Try something else goddammit.

I think we are doing pretty ok!

Nah, I don't remember that.

It's not very often that you watch such a long bout and think there is no way one of the rikishi could win. And he didn't.

Takanosho was robbed. Another very close call without mono-ii was the final makushita bout, Kitaharima vs Nakazono.

At this moment I agree - this is Daieisho's yusho to lose, considering his opponents so far. If Daieisho goes 7-0 as M1: only done twice before in the modern era, one of which was none other than the bewildered head shimpan. If Daieisho goes 8-0 as M1: unprecedented.

Had to be Nishikido Oyakata, right (moto-Mitoizumi)? He wasn't on camera.

No, jonidan was around when I was active, I just didn't start from there.

As a player who played for a few years way back, quit, and is playing again, part of the fun is climbing the banzuke. Last time around I started in sandanme, spent over a year in makushita and then reached Akiseyama-like heights before life took over. This time around I am almost sad that there is no sandanme division anymore to start from.

What about Akiseyama! Today he completely annihilated Sadanoumi and stays atop the leaderboard. Tomorrow co-leader Midorifuji, who has lost three in a row to Akiseyama...

If there was a requirement that you had to defeat a yokozuna to become one, Akebono would never have become yokozuna in 1993 since there were no yokozuna at the time. You cannot select who you fight, and you can only defeat those who participate.

On the third hand - I still think that the best strategy is to pick 4 rikishi per day for as many days as possible. If you run out of rikishi after day 12, so be it. You could of course elect to skip days earlier in the basho to save your picks. Day 1 might be a good candidate for that, but other than that my feeling is that the last days are usually the hardest anyway.

On the other hand, it's a fair game for everyone. You can either skip certain days, or try to get a win with 3 rikishi on some days.