Kintamayama 47,194 Posted May 30, 2003 At a meeting of the NSK yesterday, it has been decided that the Kosho status will be abolished. Rijicho declined to give a date, but sources say it will come into effect from January 2004. This, coming on the heals of a few suspect kosho requests, and the general feeling that rikishi are taking advantage of the kosho rule in ways which were not foreseen. The proposal has been put to the Oyakata Council meeting as well, and looks to be accepted. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Fujisan 533 Posted May 30, 2003 This could be nasty for those with genuine reasons for Kosho status-leading to potentially even more serious injuries,Rijicho could be biting off his nose to spite his face here. How will this affect the top two ranks though? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Kintamayama 47,194 Posted May 30, 2003 (edited) Rijicho says the main reasons for the proposal now are these: 1.The Musouyama example: He was NOT granted Kosho after "injuring" his left shoulder, thus not being able to lounge around doing nothing, came back, and went KK, which proves, in the Kyokai's eyes at least, that the kosho status in this case is not needed. Rijicho has added that they are looking into a number of possibilities- in any case, he would like to get consent from the rikishi themselves to any changes made. 2.The record-breaking number of Kosho rikishi lately. this seems to suggest something may be fishy in the Sumo waters. The NSK is also looking into changing the Oozeki demotion rule. They want to make it three (3)consecutive makekoshis, and the need to win 11 in the basho after to regain the rank, as opposed to 2 consecutive makekoshis and the need to win 10 to regain the ranks, as it is now. Edited May 30, 2003 by Kintamayama Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Dejimasama 0 Posted May 30, 2003 The NSK is also looking into changing the Oozeki demotion rule. They want to make it three (3)consecutive makekoshis, and the need to win 11 in the basho after to regain the rank, as opposed to 2 consecutive makekoshis and the need to win 10 to regain the ranks, as it is now. I really like the idea of the new Ozeki rule. Ofcourse it means that some Ozeki will stay a little longer than normal but once you drop it would be alot better. It also helps off set the Kosho rule. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Zenjimoto 40 Posted May 30, 2003 Hmm, interesting decision. One thing we can be sure of is, everybody who isn't bedridden will be showing up for the basho every time... maybe not a bad thing. Although, it was painful to watch, for example, Dejima, Kotomitsuki in Natsu. I am also beginning to wonder what impact this would/should have on sumo game rules. With no Kosho in real Ozumo, there seems to be reason to abolish it in the games as well... Cheers Zenjimoto Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Doitsuyama 1,259 Posted May 30, 2003 Well, I think kōshō in games are pretty sure to leave untouched, as this is real life over here and not living in a sumō stable... the games kōshō ruling never really were like the one in sumō. But I'm thinking about the special Ōzeki rulings which are kinda more likely to be adapted to real sumō. Do you really want an Ōzeki going make-koshi three times in a row? This is the part of the proposed rule changes which left me really puzzling. :-D First everyone talks about weak Ōzeki and how they wish them rather being demoted (imagine Musōyama and Tochiazuma finishing 5-10 last basho and continuing as Ōzeki next basho), how does it come then that it is apparently made EASIER staying Ōzeki than before? And don't tell me, it's the same like before (injury, kōshō, make-koshi leading to demotion); what is if an Ōzeki simply is getting weaker, which HAS to happen with every rikishi at some age? It could last YEARS of agony until he finally is demoted from the Ōzeki rank. Nobody really wants THAT or? :-( My personal opinion is that promotion AND demotion guidelines to and from Ōzeki should be relaxed. Demotion after two make-koshi; no kōshō-Status. Lowering the promotion threshold to 30 wins in jōijin without make-koshi would be fine with me too. Observe that even Ōzeki don't often achieve 30 wins in three basho. With guidelines getting stricter in both directions (as I fear) imbalances between strong lower Sanyaku and weaker Ōzeki would be possible which I never have liked. Except for Sumō games of course. I always was at my best when lower Sanyaku like Kaiō, Tochiazuma and the like were strong, really strong with weak Ōzeki like Miyabiyama or Takanonami. Nowadays only rikishi like Kyokutenhō, Dejima or Wakanosato are there, not really much stronger then the weak Ōzeki Musōyama and Tochiazuma. Everyone seems to evaluate their strength better than me now... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Zenjimoto 40 Posted May 30, 2003 (edited) What's rather interesting is, in all 5 major Japanese sumo games, there is no notion of Kosho. Players there either participate, or they face a 0-0-15. Since 4 of the games are pre-basho, it is of course a little easier to make it to the dohyo, as all you need to do is enter some time before (provided the questions and forms are up, which they in one case were not until 2 days before the basho!). There has actually been discussion on a Japanese forum about why in Sekitori-Toto and Sekitori-Oracle there ARE Kosho, with the consensus seemingly being, there should NOT be, in order to - you guessed it - encourage players to participate more, even if they are somehow inconvenienced... They all seem to think that is a good idea, prompting me to review my own guidelines for issuing games Kosho status - and now the NSK comes out with this ruling, too! Hmmm.... :-( Cheers Zenjimoto Edited May 30, 2003 by Zenjimoto Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Yubiquitoyama 4 Posted May 30, 2003 What's rather interesting is, in all 5 major Japanese sumo games, there is no notion of Kosho. Players there either participate, or they face a 0-0-15. Since 4 of the games are pre-basho, it is of course a little easier to make it to the dohyo, as all you need to do is enter some time before (provided the questions and forms are up, which they in one case were not until 2 days before the basho!).There has actually been discussion on a Japanese forum about why in Sekitori-Toto and Sekitori-Oracle there ARE Kosho, with the consensus seemingly being, there should NOT be, in order to - you guessed it - encourage players to participate more, even if they are somehow inconvenienced... They all seem to think that is a good idea, prompting me to review my own guidelines for issuing games Kosho status - and now the NSK comes out with this ruling, too! Hmmm.... :-( Cheers Zenjimoto A question that is really off-topic comes to mind, and I suppose you are the man to answer it: How big ARE the Japanese Sumo Games? I thought that they would be considerably bigger than the international ones, with Japan being the center of Ozumo, and almost no Japanese players play with "us". But then I saw somewhere that you mentioned Paper-oyakata would be the third biggest or something game, which would suggest it has fewer player than some of the english sumo games. How many DO play the most popular Japanese sumo games? Regarding games kosho, I really don't think it should be removed from the games, especially not the nduring-basho games. I almost never uses kosho myself (I just play really bad sometimes :-D but I have full understanding of it's purpose. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Yubiquitoyama 4 Posted May 30, 2003 (edited) At a meeting of the NSK yesterday, it has been decided that the Kosho status will be abolished. Rijicho declined to give a date, but sources say it will come into effect from January 2004. This, coming on the heals of a few suspect kosho requests, and the general feeling that rikishi are taking advantage of the kosho rule in ways which were not foreseen.The proposal has been put to the Oyakata Council meeting as well, and looks to be accepted. One thing in this that I haven't seen ANYONE disuss, but that struck me immediately, is that it doesn't say kosho for Ozeki, but kosho period. That is a HUGE rule change and would affect every rikishi. In fact, since the Ozeki will probably also have new demotion rules, they will hardly be affected at all (or rather, only to the better) despite them being the ones who overused the system so that Kitanoumi saw the need for a rule change. It seems it's all the others who will be affected since an injury early in a tournament will now drop a high maegashira to Juryo if he misses one basho and to Makushita if he misses two. This seems to be far from an improvement in any way, to me, but apparently many of the comments are quite positive. What am I missing? What are your opinions on this? I can only see a sudden increase of half-injured rikishi playing Hayateumi till they quit sumo since they can't take even a basho off before having a mountain to climb again. Edited May 30, 2003 by Yubiquitoyama Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Yoavoshimaru 0 Posted May 30, 2003 I'm still reserving judgement on this proposal until (if...) it becomes a rule and a fully explained one at that. But I wanted to throw out an idea regarding the 3 MK demotion for ozeki: could it be the NSK thinks people would rather see weak ozeki than less ozeki? After all, to the crowd an Ozeki is still an ozeki, introduced with the proper respect and procedure, whether said ozeki is 1-10 or 10-1 in the basho. Therefore, the NSK may want to keep ozeki around longer to attract crowds, even if the ozeki are not performing up to the older quality standards. I think it is important to keep the NSK's business aspects (bringing fans, revenues in...) in mind when they bring forward such rule changes. Like most fans, I would like the sport to stay pure and free of business considerations, but unfortunately that doesn't seem possible. (I'm still not all that excited about seeing company logos on kesho-mawashi, but at least now I understand the reasoning) :-( Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Zenjimoto 40 Posted May 30, 2003 How many DO play the most popular Japanese sumo games? Japanese games: Paper Oyakata should now have something like 170 players on the banzuke. Taka's Quiz has about 135. Taka's G1 has about 126. Hashiweb Yosou about 146. Norizo Cup about 75 or so. The others are clearly less, ranging from 5 (I won Yusho in this one two times in a row, WHOOPEE!) to about 30 players. Cheers Zenjimoto Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Yoavoshimaru 0 Posted May 30, 2003 ... And how many play the "English" games, like bench sumo, sekitori-toto, sumo game, rotosumo? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Kintamayama 47,194 Posted May 30, 2003 I can tell you my game numbers: Chaingang- 120 ISP- 130 GTB- 97 Not bad, considering.. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Zenjimoto 40 Posted May 30, 2003 From the last Super Banzuke: Bench Sumo 148 Chaingang 132 Tip-Spiel 105 GTB 144 Hoshitori 204 ISP 146 Juryo Game 92 Sekitori-Oracle 143 Odd Sumo 93 GISP 95 RotoSumo 114 Sumo Game 149 Sekitori-Toto 181 UDH 122 Remember, these are players who are currently on the banzuke of the respective game. This was BEFORE Natsu, in most games I would expect the number to increase. I know in Sekitori-Toto, the number will be 193 for the next banzuke, in Sekitori-Oracle, it will climb to 153. Cheers Zenjimoto Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Yoavoshimaru 0 Posted May 30, 2003 So it would seem that the most popular "English" (I hesitate to call them that because they're really international, but the game language is English so we'll stick with that) are at least as heavily played as the most popular "Japanese" games, right? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Zenjimoto 40 Posted May 30, 2003 (edited) Well, if you put them in order of participation numbers, they are: 204 Hoshitori 181 Sekitori-Toto 170 Paper Oyakata (J) 149 Sumo Game 148 Bench Sumo 146 Hashiweb (J) 146 ISP 144 Guess The Banzuke 143 Sekitori-Oracle 135 Taka's Quiz (J) 132 Chaingang 126 Taka's G1 (J) 122 UDH 114 RotoSumo 105 Tip-Spiel 095 GISP 093 OddSumo 092 Juryo Game 075 Norizo Cup (J) International games average players: 133 Japanese games average players: 130 Draw your own conclusions :-( Cheers Zenjimoto Edited May 30, 2003 by Zenjimoto Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Zentoryu 154 Posted May 30, 2003 I'm proud to say that Roto is now up to 123 participants. :-( Bench Sumo is up to 150, only a change of two from last basho. This is because of 8 forced retirements and 2 voluntary ones (Wakanozan and Susanowozan). :-D Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Yubiquitoyama 4 Posted May 30, 2003 Well, I DID pose the question in this post, so I suppose I am to blame for the off-topic tendencies, but I'm still curious, is there no one who actually has an opinion on what it could mean with abolished kosho, other than for the Ozekis? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Zentoryu 154 Posted May 30, 2003 Well, I DID pose the question in this post, so I suppose I am to blame for the off-topic tendencies, but I'm still curious, is there no one who actually has an opinion on what it could mean with abolished kosho, other than for the Ozekis? Well, since you asked. :-( I think this is bad news in general. While I believe some rikishi have abused the kosho rule, others clearly have not. To me they are just throwing coal onto the fire. The thing that worries me the most is seeing rikishi, like Kotomitsuki this basho and Hayateumi in the past, who should be sitting out and healing their injuries, attempting to compete out of fear of losing their ranks. This just risks further injury. I'll be surprised if Dejima didn't do some serious damage to his leg this basho when he chose to compete while on pain killers. I don't know if this is the proper direction for them to be going in. It comes back to that old argument of what's causing the increase in injuries? This is what they should be looking into. Hire a medical staff to look into all the injuries. Find out which types of injuries are serious enough to warrant Kosho status and which ones are "healable" in less than two months and therefore non-kosho. Classify the injuries by degree and go from there. At least make an effort into looking into the problem before taking such a step like this. They started to do something like this a couple of basho ago, I don't think they should stop now. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Tokimori 0 Posted May 30, 2003 I agree with Zentoryu and Yubiquitoyama. As a future doctor :-( I am not that pleased seeing clearly injured rikishi like Mickey and Dejima trying to aggravate injuries. (Going kyujo...) These things could lead to graver injuries which could spoil careers that shouldn't have been over... (Bye, bye...) BTW, it was horrible to see such a clearly injured Yubiquitoyama in Hatsu this year... :-D Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Yubiquitoyama 4 Posted May 30, 2003 BTW, it was horrible to see such a clearly injured Yubiquitoyama in Hatsu this year... (Going kyujo...) (Laughing...) :-D (Bye, bye...) :-( Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Asashosakari 20,225 Posted May 31, 2003 I don't know if this is the proper direction for them to be going in. It comes back to that old argument of what's causing the increase in injuries? This is what they should be looking into. Hire a medical staff to look into all the injuries. Find out which types of injuries are serious enough to warrant Kosho status and which ones are "healable" in less than two months and therefore non-kosho. Classify the injuries by degree and go from there. I've never really understood why kosho status is granted in advance, and not right before the basho the rikishi would need to sit out. Chiyotaikai is thought to be severely injured, gets kosho and ends up sitting out Hatsu despite reportedly being able to compete. Takanowaka is thought to be healed in 4 weeks, doesn't get kosho status and ends up dropping from Sekiwake to M6w because his recovery turns out to take longer. And both because kosho decisions are made 2 months in advance and apparently won't be reversed even in the face of evidence of a wrong decision. On that note, I believe even the current system of dropping long-term injured rikishi almost a full division with every tournament they miss is the wrong approach - a triple 0-0-15 (or 0-0-7) due to a wrecked knee just isn't the same as three 0-15 (or 0-7) due to bad sumo, and really shouldn't be treated as such. And now with the apparent plan to abolish even the one-basho grace period for injuries, it's going to get even worse, as Yubi-zeki already pointed out. (Just do not get it...) If they want to abolish the kosho system, they'll at least need to reduce the banzuke demotions that injured rikishi face. E.g. perhaps 6-mai instead of the usual 10 to 12-mai in Makuuchi and Juryo, 20-mai instead of 40-mai for Makushita, etc. Without kosho, for somebody who misses 2 tournaments, that would come out to about the same drop as before, whereas for 3 or more justified absences it would soften the drop a bit. For one-basho absences, it would be worse than currently (no further demotion if you have kosho, beyond the one you take for your injury basho), of course, but if the Kyokai abolishes kosho anyway, I'm sure the guys would rather drop from M8 to M14 instead of all the way to J4 or J5. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Kotoseiya Yuichi 3 Posted May 31, 2003 (edited) :-( As a future doctor You too! (Bye, bye...) (Kaikitsune is as well should someone not have noticed...) (Going kyujo...) BTW, I heard Yubi had sprained mesolobus for having to think about his teams for too long. I tend to suffer chronically from the exact opposite condition. Syllable of Koto enters my field of vision and the subconscious types them into my teams, be they calsicotic, cataleptic, narcoleptic, quadriplegic or catatonic. Hmm, I might have hebefrenic schizofrenia. When I was six, I read my grandparents' medical book with yucky pictures and became convinced I had a prolapsus uteri. Later I found out I had holes in my knowledge. Coffeinismus and caffeine deficiency simultaneously! :-D Edited May 31, 2003 by Kotoseiya Yuichi Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Kintamayama 47,194 Posted May 31, 2003 :-( As a future doctor You too! (Laughing...) (Kaikitsune is as well should someone not have noticed...) (Bye, bye...) BTW, I heard Yubi had sprained mesolobus for having to think about his teams for too long. I tend to suffer chronically from the exact opposite condition. Syllable of Koto enters my field of vision and the subconscious types them into my teams, be they calsicotic, cataleptic, narcoleptic, quadriplegic or catatonic. Hmm, I might have hebefrenic schizofrenia. When I was six, I read my grandparents' medical book with yucky pictures and became convinced I had a prolapsus uteri. Later I found out I had holes in my knowledge. Coffeinismus and caffeine deficiency simultaneously! :-D What does "yucky" mean?? (Going kyujo...) Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Tokimori 0 Posted May 31, 2003 (edited) As a medicine candidate, I'm familiar with all words that describe the human body and its cavities, and yucky would mean disgusting... As in: "This medicine is yucky" "My an*s is yucky" "Ouch! What a yucky nosejob you had, Michael!" :-D You too! (Kaikitsune is as well should someone not have noticed...) I thought he was a doctor, not a doctor to be... Edited May 31, 2003 by Tokimori Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
