Randomitsuki

After 10 days, it looks very much like a start-to-finish yusho by Andrasoyamawaka who has been leading since shonichi and sport a nice 2.5 WP cusion over his closest pursuers, Kobashi and Tenshinhan. The spread of players by rank and standings looks more nightmarish than usual, with many banzuke top dogs flocked near the top of the leaderboard. Expect some small promotions and harsh demotions up there if things continue like that. Sansho leaders: Shukun-sho: Andrasoyamawaka (for picking Wakamotoharu and Ryuko) Kanto-sho: Andrasoyamawaka (57 wins) Gino-sho: kuroimori (8.38 points; almost exclusively based on being the only player to pick 5-0 Kotodaigo)

Hiya, I've got two surprises for you. Following up on the thread about diminishing numbers of sumo gamers, someone (I forgot who) criticized the Superbanzuke Web pages for a) not providing any clue indicating whether links were up-to-date, and b) looking decidedly 20th Century-ish (for those born in the 20th Century - that means old and outdated!). I took both of these observations quite seriously. As to changes to the Page, I ensured that the Superbanzuke main page did no longer have generic links to results and banzuke, but also indicated the corresponding basho that results and banzuke refer to. I also indicated at the top of the main page when I last updated it. This was already done a couple of weeks ago and is not the first surprise I mentioned. The first surprise is that I tried to learn a little bit about HTML and saw that quite a lot of it is not exactly rocket science. Even a doofus like me was able to change the appearance of the Web pages relatively easily. And after looking at a handful of similar sites on the Internet, I changed the look of the Superbanzuke Web sites to something that looks more like 21st Century. No excessive coloring, as much white as possible, no strong cell boundaries. To an old fart like me it looks modern, I like it (because I made it myself), and I am sure that many of you will hate it Too bad - you better get used to the new design. The second surprise is that I toiled endlessly (well, a lot at least) to make the Superbanzuke pages as fully functional as possible. From now on, you should have access to the entirety of the Superbanzuke history again! All rankings going back to 2002, and all Masters Series going back to 2004! All photos and links should also be working (the only thing that is beyond fixing is the use of the country flags for old pages). I even created some pages that never really existed before (like for the World Championships in 2017 and 2018)! In addition, I did a million smaller things that you wouldn't notice anyway, so I wont't mention them... So rejoice and dig into the historical depth of sumo gaming. There was even a time where not every game was won and every banzuke was led by Pandaazuma. Hard to believe, but true! So, without further ado: The new Superbanzuke entry page with links to all you need about the 19 SB games (I decided to kill Fantasy Sumo altogether rather then letting it slowly die over a grace period). And of course, the new Superbanzuke Ranking for Hatsu 2020 Now if only the games themselves could provide a (working) link to the SB pages... But that would be just too perfect!

Oskahanada is the new shikona of Oskanohana who finished 44th last year.

Hiya, please consider playing the wonderful and only Makushita Game. http://makushita.sumogames.de A banzuke was sent to Doitsuyama a while ago, but has not been published yet. You can check for Makushita rikishi absences on Saturday before shonichi at http://www.sumo.or.jp/EnHonbashoMain/absence/ Thanks for reading this.

1-5 Pandaazuma 6-10 Andoreasu 11-20 Gurowake 21-40 Kitakachiyama 41-80 Athenayama 81-120 Oortael 121-200 Kaiomitsuki 201+ Ruziklao Go Team!!!

Alternatively, there is the Superbanzuke main page which provides access to all Superbanzuke games. Links on that page should be working, as I tend to update them every basho. http://99998271.com/sb/

That's a good question. The number of participants peaked already in 2005, and has been on a decline ever since. Factors that potentially moved up the number of international participants were: TV coverage on Eurosport (ended around 2005), and more international rikishi (for example, there was a huge influx of Bulgarian and Estonian players when Kotooshu and Baruto entered the scene), maybe also a polarizing figure like Asashoryu. Factors that potentially reduced the number of players were: restrictions on foreign rikishi, several scandals. I have compiled the number of players on each Kyushu Banzuke for nine sumo games since 2001. Here are the results: Some observations: Most games peaked in 2005 or 2006. At the low point (2017), the number of players was effectively cut in half. When games have maintenance problems (Oracle and Quadrumvirate in 2007), players will leave in spades. The dwindling numbers are not an "international" phenomonon. Quite the opposite, in fact. Paper Oyakata is the only game that saw a decline for each year since 2005! Little things can do wonders: when Kintamayama mentioned ISP in some of his videos, the game more than doubled its numbers of participants immediately (much to the chagrin of banzuke-maker Ganzohnesushi )! Of course, many of them just checked ISP out and left shortly after. However, the ISP effect apparently spilled over to other sumo games, especially if they are similarly accessible (Chaingang being a prime example). But even games that require more time and investment (Bench, Sumo Game, GTB, Oracle, Quadrumvirate) also benefited from Kintamayama's advertising.

I should put a disclaimer that my personal opinion on these matters should not be given more weight than the opinion of anybody else (maybe even less as I do not play any longer). That being said, I always liked when games had different nuances. I was never super-happy when Zenjimoto (the inventor of the Superbanzuke) added Ozumo Bingo Game, as it is very similar to Paper Oyakata (in fact, those who have a good basho in one of these games also tend to do well in the other). A similar case could have been made for GISP (which ended in 2009) and Fantasy Sumo. However, as both these games are out of the picture right now, I would not be against having a very straightforward pre-basho game like GISP, Fantasy Sumo (Kachiclash looks just like that). TUG has something unique about it, I think. As for Yoso, it looks very similar to Norizo Cup, innit? But again, these are just my two cents.

Just for completeness: the full-blown 2019 World Championship page (including the Hall of Fame) can be found at http://99998271.com/sb/2019sbsgwc.html

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on the inclusion of TUG on the Superbanzuke. As much as I admire the dedication and hard labor that Achiyama puts into the maintenance of TUG, several sumo gamers (among them several hardcore gamers) have pointed out that it is that same hard maintenance work which doesn't turn TUG into a Superbanzuke prospect. The fact that the game is not automated and the burden of maintenance exclusively rests on Achiyama's shoulders really could pose a problem. What if Achiyama is not available for investing time in updates/banzuke making etc.? There is only one other game on the Superbanzuke that is not automated (Tippspiel), but it builds on a larger group of volunteers who serve as daily gyoji, and there can always be substitute gyoji to be called upon on short notice. Unfortunately, that is not the case with TUG at the moment. Therefore, I am sorry to say that I have decided against inclusion at the current moment. I think that there are two paths leading out of this predicament. First, if TUG has such a loyal fan-base, maybe one of its players has the skills to automate the game. Second, and again, if there is a loyal fan-base, maybe a way could be found that other gamers can support Achiyama in the daily chores of maintenance (provided that he is willing to share the task with others).

Hiya, please find the Final Results of the Kyushu 2019 Masters Series at the usual place: http://99998271.com/sb/sbmsnew.html The 2019 Sumo Gaming World Championship page is not yet in its final stage (with all the year end embellishments), but for seeing how you did this year (and for launching Metasumo 2020) I have uploaded it anyway. http://99998271.com/sb/sbsgwc.html

I believe that serge_gva inquired about percentage per rikishi over his career. The data are on each rikishi‘s kimarite page, but there is no way to query these results. Only Doitsuyama could do it.

That's true, I guess. I would not be able to distinguish sokubiotoshi from a hatakikomi, for sure. On another note, a disadvantage of the method behind this map is that it can only be the best possible approximation for the actual correlational patterns behind them (that's why I wrote "tend to be highly correlated" rather than "are highly correlated" in my initial post. Case in point: the actual correlation between sokubiotoshi and hatakiomi is at a fairly high +.29 on a scale from -1 = total dissimilarity to +1 = total similarity. In contrast, the correlation between sokubiotoshi and tsukitaoshi is non-existent at +.00. And yet, tsukitaoshi and sokubiotoshi are closer on the map than sokubiotoshi and hatakikomi. However, this is because sokubiotoshi and tsukitaoshi are similar in how often they do and do not co-occur with other kimarite. That's why the method is called multidimensional scaling, a near-impossible attempt to reduce something complex and multidimensional to something that our eyes can understand (a two-dimensional map). But it's like trying to play Beethoven's 9th when all you have at your disposal is a recorder (I've put a Wikipedia link in here as I just learnt that word minutes ago).

I started by looking up the rare kimarite themselves, e.g. this query for mitokorozeme. Names that cropped up more often on these lists were included in the total dataset, no matter which division they were in.

That's a good question for which I only have a bad answer: the x and y are meaningless by themselves - multidimensional scaling just tries to optimize complex relations among variables into a map, and it definitely does not use any pre-coded categories. For instance, I did not tell the algorithm to put yotsu-zumo in the upper left corner, and in fact, it is completely arbitrary that yotsu was put in the upper left rather than upper right corner. On this map, it's only the relative distances between the dots that matter.