Games Talk Haru 2018

[Asashosakari]

7 hours ago, Jakusotsu said:

7 hours ago, Atenzan said:

What's your Bench username, if you'll allow my nosiness? 

Combine the first kanji of the M6w and M11w.

(Or simply watch my opponent tomorrow.)

What, is this Games Talk or Game Stalk? 

I have 5 projected losers in my Bench squad today. Oddly, all 5 bouts they're involved in are also part of Tippspiel (alongside automatic zero Ryuden-Sokokurai), so my Tippspiel lineup ended up as essentially the inverse of my Bench bench...

[Sakura]

Poor basho, even by my low expectations.

I wish I had gone KOSHO this time. I've been beset by all sorts of unexpected things happening (like lots of sudden medical appointments for extended family members that I have to deal with). This means that my head has not been focused. 

That's not that interesting, but I thought I'd share an example of just exactly where my head has been. When doing the scoring for my game, Break The Curse, I was having trouble entering the points for player Aoiyama (I couldn't find them on my sheet) and I was confused as to how many points he scored for picked rikishi Pandaazuma.

[Asashosakari]

17 hours ago, Pandaazuma said:

I suppose we can call this a reverse jinx?? ;)

Well, thanks to this reverse-reverse jinx, my 5-day winning streak has ended after just two matches today (with the Ryuden freebie now totally useless, argh).

[Pandaazuma]

4 hours ago, Asashosakari said:

Well, thanks to this reverse-reverse jinx, my 5-day winning streak has ended after just two matches today (with the Ryuden freebie now totally useless, argh).

AAARGHHHH! Sorry, mate.

[Pandaazuma]

5 hours ago, Sakura said:

Poor basho, even by my low expectations.

I wish I had gone KOSHO this time. I've been beset by all sorts of unexpected things happening (like lots of sudden medical appointments for extended family members that I have to deal with). This means that my head has not been focused. 

That's not that interesting, but I thought I'd share an example of just exactly where my head has been. When doing the scoring for my game, Break The Curse, I was having trouble entering the points for player Aoiyama (I couldn't find them on my sheet) and I was confused as to how many points he scored for picked rikishi Pandaazuma.

I suspect even I might have done better than Aoiyama today. I mean...against a lad who henkas in 80% of bouts.

[Jakusotsu]

Excellent ISP choice yesterday. The bout Ichinojo vs. Goeido was evenly split 35-35 in Toto.  (non-public information)

Curiously it turned out to be 95-55 in favour of Ichinojo in ISP (disregarding AutoPicks).

[Rocks]

32 minutes ago, Jakusotsu said:

Excellent ISP choice yesterday. The bout Ichinojo vs. Goeido was evenly split 35-35 in Toto.  (non-public information)

Curiously it turned out to be 95-55 in favour of Ichinojo in ISP (disregarding AutoPicks).

I didn't think so. After ichinojo's loss to Kakuryu I didn't think he'd be up for it today. I didn't think it was a given, but forced to pick I was always picking Goeido there. I would have picked the Kaisei/Endo match. I had a gut feeling Endo might win but even with that I couldn't resist picking Kaisei elsewhere because of how he has been looking so good. 

 

[Gurowake]

Very generous odds for Tochinoshin produced a bunch of good scores in Odd.  I may have chickened out on ante a bit because I was hovering around the KK mark as a kadoban Ozeki, but I'm glad I managed to reel that one in and effectively seal the deal on maintaining my rank.

[Gurowake]

With a free win in TTT available Day 12 for those whose schedule allowed them to recognize it, it's interesting how many people picked Ryuden that obviously weren't expecting a fusensho for him due to not picking Mitoryu as well.

[Asashosakari]

6 hours ago, Gurowake said:

With a free win in TTT available Day 12 for those whose schedule allowed them to recognize it, it's interesting how many people picked Ryuden that obviously weren't expecting a fusensho for him due to not picking Mitoryu as well.

Why? I think it was largely expected that Sokokurai would go kyujo, long before the official confirmation came. I'm one of those who did the fusensho double, but I'd have picked Ryuden regardless.

[Gurowake]

16 hours ago, Asashosakari said:

Why? I think it was largely expected that Sokokurai would go kyujo, long before the official confirmation came. I'm one of those who did the fusensho double, but I'd have picked Ryuden regardless.

Ok, I should have said "it's interesting to me".  I'm not paying any attention to what's going on this basho other than checking who won and lost.

[Suwihuto]

On 22/03/2018 at 23:01, Gurowake said:

Very generous odds for Tochinoshin produced a bunch of good scores in Odd.  I may have chickened out on ante a bit because I was hovering around the KK mark as a kadoban Ozeki, but I'm glad I managed to reel that one in and effectively seal the deal on maintaining my rank.

Yes, that, plus a fusensho, enabled me to jump up to first. Whether I'll stay there, I'm not so sure.

[Asashosakari]

7 hours ago, Gurowake said:

Ok, I should have said "it's interesting to me".  I'm not paying any attention to what's going on this basho other than checking who won and lost.

I was querying the logic that not picking against Mitoryu must mean people also weren't expecting the Sokokurai withdrawal. That just doesn't follow at all.

[Pandaazuma]

Don't remember ever having such disparity between my pre-basho and daily gaming performances. I have been nothing short of abysmal pre-basho, and Norizo is trouncing me in Oracle...he will win yusho there and I'll probably be 6-9 or something. And yet my dailies have gone swimmingly, despite the unpredictable nature of the basho. Mysterious  stuff. The Green Mawashi is a straight-up battle between Norizo and myself...which is kind of fitting as we both hold the Masters titles record of eight. The winner will be the one who has the best senshuraku. Gambarimasu!

[Rocks]

Well after a great start I faded but I've hung on a couple places and should get some points. Altogether pretty good. Disappointed with Toto though.  I wasn't expecting to win but after a 6-0 start I really wanted to get 10 wins. Oh well.

[Asashosakari]

Hey, I started 5-0 in Toto and I'm probably going makekoshi tomorrow considering my usual senshuraku suckitude...

[Jakusotsu]

5 hours ago, Asashosakari said:

Hey, I started 5-0 in Toto and I'm probably going makekoshi tomorrow considering my usual senshuraku suckitude...

Same here after a 1-7 start in TTT.

[Pandaazuma]

Norizo is NOT going to like those Toto standings, especially in light of his dominance in the gino-sho (the only sansho in any game I pay attention to).

[Atenzan]

Looks like I'm finally going onto the superbanzuke! Ranked 28th in Chaingang for Natsu. Would have been even higher if Aoiyama hadn't been robbed. Should've gone to Specsavers.

Gurowake, Asashosakari, Pandaazuma, Jakusotsu, all of you are below me. I'm definitely calling my mum to tell her. Might even put it on my CV. 

[Asashosakari]

6 hours ago, Pandaazuma said:

Norizo is NOT going to like those Toto standings, especially in light of his dominance in the gino-sho (the only sansho in any game I pay attention to).

If it's any consolation I lost a yusho on that last year, too. I've actually inquired with Doitsuyama about reversing that rule change again, and scrapping all X pick penalties as well* while we're at it, but understandably any significant changes to the games' automation are not a huge priority right now.

At the time that rule (yusho TB = juryo pick score only) was introduced the prospect was to rework the yusho tiebreaking completely eventually, but that never got beyond the discussion stage. I still don't really like the thought of going back to basing it on the gino-sho score, but it would arguably be better than the status quo. 

My preferred approach would be something I think Ganzohnesushi suggested back then, where players can score tiebreaker points by being above-average each day in either the makuuchi or the juryo results (and more points if they're above-average in both), but of course that would require quite a different presentation of the daily results as well, not just changing the automation to calculate it. That would serve to strengthen the importance of the juryo picks for yusho tiebreaking, which was my intention back then, but without disregarding the makuuchi picks altogether as the current approach does...

* I get annoyed these days when I see somebody above the line with 1 X pick and somebody else below with 3 even though the 3X guy still scored the better risk factor in fewer bouts, notwithstanding that that's something that never affects me personally.

Edited March 25, 2018 by Asashosakari

[Asashosakari]

On 4.3.2018 at 18:56, Asashosakari said:

Seki-Quad is on a run of 10 straight tournaments with scoring below the historical average (47.9%). The longest streak before was 7 tournaments from Natsu 2008 to Natsu 2009, the next-"best" were streaks of just 4 and 3, also in the very early days (2007.07-2008.01 and 2004.09-2005.01).

Conversely, the longest streaks with above-average scoring were 7 basho (2012.07-2013.07) and 5 basho (2011.07-2012.03). The basho in between those two streaks narrowly missed the mark at 47.0%, so basically after the yaocho scandal we enjoyed two+ years of consistently good scoring, and right now we're coming up on two years of the opposite.

Very decent scoring in Quad this time actually and the overall win rate hovered above 50% as late as Day 12, making me think I'd successfully unjinxed the game, but the final three days killed it again with daily percentages of only 21, 27 and 25%, so Haru finishes with 45.7% winning entries. Better than the last three tournaments but again well below average. Fittingly, Day 14 outright leader Profomisakari also won the yusho outright despite a senshuraku loss due to all three pursuers being unsuccessful as well.

[Pandaazuma]

A fair barometer of my pre-basho performance can be found in the Fantasy Sumo standings: I was beaten by the Sumo Monkey...who picked Hakuho. ;)

[Randomitsuki]

5 hours ago, Pandaazuma said:

A fair barometer of my pre-basho performance can be found in the Fantasy Sumo standings: I was beaten by the Sumo Monkey...who picked Hakuho. ;)

Says the guy who got (at least) 21.50 Masters points for pre-basho games in Haru... ;)

[Pandaazuma]

2 hours ago, Randomitsuki said:

Says the guy who got (at least) 21.50 Masters points for pre-basho games in Haru... ;)

Well, I am not really counting the GTB yusho. And the points I got were in the two games that were not affected so much by my woeful picking, namely Juryo Game and UDH. The other pre-basho games were a washout.

[Randomitsuki]

39 minutes ago, Pandaazuma said:

Well, I am not really counting the GTB yusho. And the points I got were in the two games that were not affected so much by my woeful picking, namely Juryo Game and UDH. The other pre-basho games were a washout.

In 11 pre-basho games you had

1 yusho

2 more games in the Top 10

4 more games with a KK (not entirely sure about FS and SCS, but most certainly in the upper half of players there)

2 games with a 7-8 finish

2 games with 5-10 records or worse.

If I had such a pre-basho performance at the best of my times, I would have called that a decent performance, and not a washout. Then again, you are currently on such an outlandish level of sumo gaming that such a haul probaby looks like a total disaster to you ;)