Here’s my actual final entry for Guess The Banzuke (GTB), which has a few changes from my Crystal Ball post. Scroll down for a brief discussion.
In the named ranks, there are two small wrinkles. One is placing shin-Ozeki Kirishima (Kiribayama) on the West side, despite the fact that he had a much better record than the incumbent, Takakeisho, who should move over to the East side. Traditionally, the newcomer to the rank is always the lowest-ranked. The other is leaving S2e open and keeping Wakamotoharu at S2w to balance the East and West ranks (the rationale for this is keeping the column size similar on the actual physical banzuke).
Everything down to M9e should be the same as my previous post. I’ve opted to bump Ura down by half a rank to M4w so that he gets at least a minimal demotion, and placed Asanoyama at M4e.
The changes are in the bottom half of the maegashira ranks, the part of the banzuke I noted has the most uncertainty. After staring at sumodb for a while, I pulled up Wakatakakage to M9w, and then placed Myogiryu and Kotoeko ahead of Kinbozan and Nishikifuji. I also pulled Gonoyama up a rank, which I may regret, and flipped Kotoshoho and Endo. Everything else should be the same. Here’s the previous draft for comparison:
| 9e Hokutofuji | 9w Kinbozan |
| 10e Nishikifuji | 10w Wakatakakage |
| 11e Myogiryu | 11w Kotoeko |
| 12e Chiyoshoma | 12w Tsurugisho |
| 13e Kotoshoho | 13w Endo |
| 14e Gonoyama | 14w Daishoho |
| 15e Ryuden | 15w Takarafuji |
| 16e Shonannoumi | 16w Ochiai |
| 17e Aoiyama | 17w Atamifuji |
Everything look really interesting and very plausible i think.
What surprise me the most though it’s Hokuseiho placement/gain with just a 8-7 kachikochi.
But at the same time, while checking the rest of the makekoshi rikishi around that area of the banzuke, i can see the kind of “snag” that is there. Not at all clear what should be done around that part of the banzuke. Hum….
Will be interesting to see what the elders will choose to do when the banzuke come out.
Onosho, Oho, Hokuseiho, and Takayasu placements are all very lucky, but it’s hard to see who else would fit that hole in the banzuke. There’s really nobody who “deserved” the M5w-M7e ranks, but someone had to fill them.
Some differences compared to yours were (1) I had Wakatakakage and Takayasu swapped round. I tried to allow for san’yaku weighting but perhaps too much.
(2) Bushozan ahead of Atamifuji. It felt like Atamifuji would still be getting a big promotion.
(3) I had Shonanoumi a bit higher up at 15W which meant splitting the promotees into three groups, which may be unwise (I think they tend to clump together).
I enjoyed using the online GTB helper, is that a new thing? (My previous method was to parse the HTML from the database into something more readable, cycle to the library to print it out, cut out the names and then line them on an empty banzuke. It was fun and I think captured the spirit of how I imagine the committee do it, but it’s probably the main reason I’ve been kyujo for about a year!)
Should have said Bushozan INSTEAD of Atamifuji
The helper is awesome, this is the 2nd or 3rd basho this version has been around, there was a previous iteration but without nearly so many features. I used to have some manual schemes, including write-on magnets! I still use paper quite a bit.
You’re probably right about Bushozan over Atami; I wasn’t sure and went with the math as well as my personal preference for Atami.
I never thought of write-on magnets, that’s a very good idea!
I don’t see Bushozan being denied promotion to Makuuchi. I think he’ll either be promoted at Atamifuji’s expense, or Kotoshoho will fall out of Makuuchi and Bushozan will be promoted at his expense.
There can be no doubt about Wakamotoharu earning Se2. Will the balance of the banzuke really be that important to deny him the promotion? And if yes, why not start with Hoshoryu on S1w? I think the balance would be even nicer like that…
It’s not really a promotion. A sekiwake is a sekiwake, and the order they’re in may matter, but if he’s at the back of the line either way, nothing changes for him. And yes, they’ll keep him on the west side for balance reasons—the two main slots (first rank) will be filled, and then extra ranks are used for balance when possible.
There isn’t even really a question about this: when there are an odd number of Yokozuna + Ozeki, and an odd number of Sekiwake, then the lowest ranked Sekiwake will be on the West side.
Similarly, if there is an odd number of Yokozuna, and an Odd number of Ozeki, then the lowest ranked Ozeki will be on the west side (see: last basho).
The “balance” is literally the balance of writing the banzuke – it is the same width on both sides and while they do heroic work to cram everything in, you can’t have one side 30% wider than the other because there are 75% of the San’yaku ranked guys on the east for no reason. Generations of the way the banzuke is made won’t change because someone “deserves S2E over S2W” – there isn’t any functional difference in those ranks, it doesn’t affect his opportunity for promotion or demotion in any way, both are sekiwake ranks.
You also can’t “start” with Hoshoryu at S1W and have Wakamotoharu at S2E because Daieisho needs to be ranked behind Hoshoryu and ahead of Wakamotoharu.
FWIW, I think the “Hoshoryu at S1w” notion was intended to imply that S1e should be left empty and S1w-S2w filled so that none of Hoshoryu/Daieisho/Wakamotoharu are getting a “promotion”. Just as misguided as complaining about Wakamotoharu’s position to begin with, but I suppose there’s some limited method in the madness with that idea.
This is akin to arguing that Takakeisho received a demotion from O1e to O1w after his 12-3 in November, when the switch happened because Shodai’s demotion made it one Y and one O so the O had to be on the West side for balance.
Okay, thank U all (except Asashosakari, who unfortunately isn‘t able to tell logic from madness) for your explanations why the balance of the banzuke is so historically important. Very helpful information for my own first try at GTB next time!
I’m looking forward to your very “logical” GTB entry now.
When you watch the bashos, you’ll see that the matches of the day are ordered according to the highest-ranked rikishi in each pairing. So a match between M17 and M12 comes before a match between M3 and M1. Similarly, a match M3w-M1e comes after M2e-M1w, because the e/w side matters in Maegashira ranks. In the san’yaku, the e/w is just for banzuke balance. In a basho, the match order for san’yaku guys will rotate day to day. For example, if the 2 komusubi are the highest ranked guys in their matches on back to back days, day x might have M3e-K1w followed by M4w-K1e and day x+1 has M2w-K1e followed by M3e-K1w. Same goes for the sekiwake matches, the ozeki matches, and the yokozuna matches–during the Hakuho-Kakuryu era, in the rare two-yokozuna bashos, they alternated having the final bout of the day.
For san’yaku, the name of the rank is the status, and you can consider the numbers and sides are just art. Movement within the rank is reordering based on last basho but not changes of rank per se.
Actually, you’ll notice that on even days, if neither maegashira at a given numerical rank hasn’t been scheduled against a higher-ranked opponent, they’ll have the e.g. M4w-M5e after M4e-M5w, so there’s the rotation principle there too. The best example I can find from last basho is M5e Kinbozan vs. M7w Tamawashi followed by M5w Kotoshoho vs. M7e Hokutofuji on Day 6.
Ah, true, LK. Fair enough and good example!
OUR FATES ARE LINKED
Oh wow, looks like just an Endo/Gonoyama flip and whatever you decided at 17W
Please forgive my ignorance, but my question, Iksumo, is how do you go about factoring in the “human factor” or committee preference?
I always find this post most interesting – Thank You!
I try not to factor this in, as it’s very hard to guess what they might be thinking. There are occasional edge cases where I might decide on what otherwise would be a coin flip based on past treatment of particular rikishi or other similar considerations, but I don’t know that this improves my predictions.
Thank you – you’re always interesting and knowledgeable! You all help me learn so much!
Interesting…..https://twitter.com/InsideSportJP/status/1671637865074413568?s=20
The Kyokai seems uniquely ill-suited to being able to control the narrative of sumo abroad.
Indeed…