I took a preliminary look at the Haru banzuke right after the Hatsu basho concluded. Now, here’s the full guess. Scroll down for some quick notes about the biggest question marks. The banzuke will be released on Tuesday February 25 (Japan time), a day later than usual, because Sunday the 23rd is the Emperor’s birthday. In the meantime, let me know what you think in the comments.
- I went with Kirishima over Oho at S1w due to the former’s higher rank and prior sanyaku experience.
- I picked K1e Abi (7-8) over M3e Gonoyama (8-7) for K1w.
- I ordered the rikishi most likely to occupy M4w-M5w broken as follows: M4w Ura (7-8), who was in the joi, then M14w Kinbozan (12-3) ahead of M6w Ichiyamamoto (8-7) due to more wins. There’s a chance that M5e Hiradoumi (7-8) will get pushed ahead of one or both of them.
- I pushed M4e Shodai (6-9) and M2w Atamifuji (5-10) ahead of M11w Takerufuji (10-5) and M10e Tamawashi (9-6) because they were in the joi.
- I put 15e Hakuoho (10-5) ahead of 7e Endo (6-9) at M9 by virtue of more wins.
- I put M10w Meisei (6-9) ahead of M8w Takarafuji (5-10) by virtue of more wins.
- I put M17e Nishikifuji (9-6) ahead of all the Juryo promotions by virtue of his being in Makuuchi and having a better than minimal winning record.
- I put Churanoumi ahead of Sadanoumi by virtue of incumbent preference.
- I put Asakoryu ahead of the 3 Makuuchi incumbents who earned demotable records but are staying due to a lack of additional replacement candidates in Juryo.
- I put M13w Kotoshoho (5-10) ahead of M7w Mitakeumi (2-3) by virtue of more wins.
- I put Shirokuma, who didn’t quite have a promotion case, in the last position (the newly reestablished M18e) but opted to promote him over keeping Tamashoho.
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Sounds wonderful, if an olfactory assault 🙂 I hope you can tell us all about the London tournament come October.
I later found two tickets together and one immediately behind them; sadly they were the £595 ones!! Someone had clearly released them. Needless to say, it was a ‘non merci’ from me.
Looking forward to this Sunday though.
Over on Reddit, somebody said they phoned the RAH and they were told that some seats are being held back for when the general booking opens on Friday. So maybe don’t lose hope yet!
Thanks Angelus ! Logged on 0900GMT this morning, all was fine, then my computer died on me at 0948 hours. By the time I got back on, I was position 7827 in the queue. It just wasn’t meant to be.
I see the matches for the first day of the basho are up on sumo.or.jp.
Hoshoryu gets Abi for his intro match 🤔 Onosato, Wakatakage and Wakamotoharu Kotozakura. Kirishima gets Tobizaru.
😞Only hospitality seats available now. People are even coming from as far away as the US to watch it so I suppose it’s no wonder the seats sold out so quickly.
Anyway, I’m wondering what will happen on Monday, Hoshoryu vs Wakatakakage with 8-5 history in favour of Wakatakakage.
Hoshoryu won the last two though, and the others were before he was Ozeki and before WTK got injured.
For USA fans of Ozumo, please remember this is the weekend, Sunday March 9th, that we adjust our clocks, “Spring Forward”, so we lose an hour and are 1 hour closer to start of Sumo broadcasts if you are watching “live” in the middle of the night! Wouldn’t want any of us to miss a minute of it!! :-)