fwuzzle23

At the very least it's the interpretation I've always gone with, a practical reason for why the sanyaku needs to be balanced but makuuchi as a whole doesn't need to be.

The only way Daieisho would be placed in the west is if there were an odd number of either yokozuna or ozeki. Balancing only happens if there's more than one sanyaku rank with an odd number of rikishi. In that 3Y/3O/2S/2K example Jakusotsu gave you earlier, the third yokozuna was left in the east while the third ozeki was shifted over to the west. Remember that the sanyaku-ranked rikishi are written on the banzuke in wider characters so the balancing is more of a way to prevent overcrowding of names in the east column. On the other hand, the maegashira ranks can be squeezed together a bit more given their names are written with narrower characters, so the balancing doesn't need to extend to them.

Nope, banzuke is getting released on the 27th as scheduled, so the GTB deadline is still a week before that on the 20th.

The last rank you had before retiring doesn't matter in the least, it's your highest rank that matters. Everyone who makes it to ozeki, whether they retire while still ozeki or drop to juryo or even further, is treated as an ozeki on retirement. They're still referred to as "former ozeki (shikona)" and given the appropriate retirement benefits of a former ozeki.

37 by my count, tied for my lowest-ever GTB score. I also went back and counted my guess using an alternate-universe banzuke where only Hokutofuji got promoted (putting Asanoyama at M1e and everyone else shifting half a rank lower), and got 49 in that. Still not great but that's par for the course for me at this point.

No, Okinoumi's kanto-sho is unconditional, he'll just get a shukun-sho as well if he gets the yusho. Mitakeumi seems to be the either/or situation, shukun if he does and kanto if he doesn't.

52 points, would have been 60 but I accidentally labeled Chiyotairyu as 7-8 on my prediction sheet instead of 8-7 so he ended up being off two ranks and the Ryuden-Shimanoumi-Myogiryu-Kotoshogiku sequence behind him was half a rank too high. Entirely preventable on my part but I didn't realize it until after the submission deadline...

Takanohana was in the hospital at the time with a high fever. Otherwise, yes, he likely would have been the one doing it instead of Akebono.

I know, plenty of naturalized citizens do pick a Japanese name, I'm just saying it doesn't seem to be a requirement in order to naturalize:

At least from what the wiki page on Japanese citizenship (here) is saying, that's not a requirement. Entirely possible Badarch Dashnyam/ バダルチ・ダシニャム is his Japanese legal name.

No, both of them retired but the DB didn't pick up on it and marked them banzuke-gai for the Natsu banzuke. Doitsuyama fixed that.

They moved it from October 5th for this year. 2020 still seems to be the normal date for now.

Kensho don't contribute to the mochikyukin number, those are one-time payments only (though part of the withheld amount contributes to their retirement pay). Wikipedia has a good mochikyukin article if you need an explanation.

60 yen (equivalent to a 240,000 yen payout, as shown) is the minimum mochikyukin value for those in makuuchi. Same reason the other four listed at 240 have that much, they haven't been around long enough to accrue a large-enough bonus. If any of them get demoted back to juryo, they lose the difference between their pre-promotion account and 60...which I believe in Tomokaze's case will be 13.

First top 25 placement and first time in the sixties...I'll gladly accept it, but I won't lie, I'm slightly disappointed that I got most of the big questions wrong. Still, it's a KK and progress up the GTB banzuke, I'll just have to gambarize further.