***Spoilers through day 7***
Uncertainty abounds….so why not make more bets on the yusho race? The GSB crew is as unsure as ever on who will win the Aki basho. With a dark horse out in front and 3 more hot on his heels, it is anyone’s tournament. Tweet us complaints or, if you feel like yelling, leave a voice mail at 805-613-SUMO (7866).
Theme music by David Hall via SoundCloud
***Day 2 Spoilers***
“Better late than never,” I say while figuratively sauntering into the sumo office two days late…
Fantasy Sumo
This basho, our social media contest to join us for fantasy sumo was to come up with sumo-themed super heroes. Keep an eye out for our next contest after Aki. Our winner this month is Brenden, and you can check out his team below along with our scoring rules.
Who do you think will take it? Will our guest kick our asses like usual?
GSB Sumo Power Rankings – Link to Spreadsheet
If you, like any real sumo fan, are into crunching numbers to analyze the sport, you’ll love our sumo power rankings. We’ve created and maintained a ranking system based on professional chess’s Elo ratings. Each wrestler has a rating with the average defined as 1000. Over the course of the basho, wrestlers will give and take points from each other based on the outcome of their match as well as their probability of winning. Based on the last 3 years of competition, here is the top 10 coming into the Aki basho:
Kakuryu unsurprisingly topped the list, with now-kyujo Hakuho and Takaysu close behind. Obviously those two won’t stay close now, but it’ll be fun to see who can catch up. Check out the link to our spreadsheet if you want to see current stats, I update at least every other day during the tournaments.
Another basho is upon us and the GSB crew break down the storylines to watch for. After looking into the top stories we have a trailer for a brand new sumo soap opera at 58:27 followed by our most ridiculous prediction series draft to date. Drop us a line if you like at 805-613-SUMO (7866) or find us on social media.
Theme music by David Hall via SoundCloud
After Jake and Ryan get over an identity crisis. Ryan analyzes how the Aki banzuke shook out and how it compared to his banzuke prediction.
Theme music by David Hall via SoundCloud
In our latest statistics project, Jake introduces us to a new hypothetical wrestler: Namiyama. Namiyama technically does not exist, but is going to help us sound more intelligent as we analyze the kimarite patterns of specific wrestlers. Drop us a line with requests or suggestions at 805-613-SUMO (7866) or find us on social media.
Theme music by David Hall via SoundCloud
Another basho down, another set of those sweet, sweet spreadsheets.
Fantasy Sumo
Fantasy sumo did… not go great for yours truly. It was a rough basho for my team so I’m glad I’ll have our Japan trip to look back on instead of this performance. Here’s how we determine our points:
And here’s how each of our teams did:
Our guest Sunlan did great but was just barely edged out by Flyric. If you’d like to join us for the next basho, look for our new contest on our Twitter feed. This time around we are looking for for the best sumo-themed superhero ideas.
GSB Sumo Power Rankings – Link to Spreadsheet
My personal pet project is our sumo power rankings. Last-month-Jake describes our system thusly:
“We created a system based on professional chess’s Elo ratings. Each wrestler has a rating with the average defined as 1000. Over the course of the basho, wrestlers will give and take points from each other based on the outcome of their match as well as their probability of winning.”
Well said. So without further math, here are the top 10 ratings coming out of Nagoya:
Unsurprisingly, our yusho winner Kakuryu tops out the rankings after Nagoya with rival Hakuho keeping Hakuhot on his heels (sorry). Takayasu pulled out of the tournament, but stays near the top of the rankings due to his solid wins before the injury. Feel free to check out the link to our spreadsheet for full stats and we’ll catch you next time!
Ryan tries to predict what the Aki banzuke will look like as Jake rudely tries to distract him by hacking up a lung for half the episode. Ryan also waffles harder than that one politician you don’t like on most of his picks. Drop us a line at 805-613-SUMO (7866) or find us on Facebook/Twitter/Instagram/YouTube/your local community center’s bulletin board!
Theme music by David Hall via SoundCloud
The GSB crew is back home safe and sound from our trip to Japan and we finally were able to endure each other’s presence again long enough to record our review of the Nagoya basho. We’ve got loads of pictures on our Twitter and Instagram if you want to see what we got up to on the other side of the globe. Check out our attempt at a side project at 54:41 and give a call at 805-613-SUMO (7866)!
Theme music by David Hall via SoundCloud
Sorry this one’s a little late, we have a lot going on here on our Japan vacation. We have a bit of basho talk, but most of this episode is us discussing our sumo travels. Our audio setup will be back to normal for the recap episode, so please forgive any hiccups. Check out our Twitter and Instagram accounts for more pictures of our travels!
Theme music per David Hall via SoundCloud
Time for the best part of any basho: the spreadsheets!
Fantasy Sumo
As always, check out our Twitter feed between the bashos for our fun little contest to join us in our fantasy sumo league. Each basho we pick a winner to join the four of us and draft teams of 5 makuuchi wrestlers and 1 juryo. Here’s our scoring system:
This time our contest winner is Sunlan, who helped us out with some good (and bad) travel advice for our vacation to Japan. Here’s his lineup as well as each of ours. Who do you think will take it this tournament?
GSB Sumo Power Rankings – Link to Spreadsheet
Next up is our sumo power rankings. We created a system based on professional chess’s Elo ratings. Each wrestler has a rating with the average defined as 1000. Over the course of the basho, wrestlers will give and take points from each other based on the outcome of their match as well as their probability of winning. After a slight regression towards the mean in between tournaments, here are the top 10 ratings going into Nagoya:
Note that wrestlers’ rankings are influenced by more than just the most recent basho, hence Hakuho is still at the top after his 15-0 Haru, even though he skipped Natsu entirely. Also notable are Asanoyama (#11, 1048) and Tochinoshin(#12, 1038) who did great in Natsu, but just missed the top 10.
Check out the link to the spreadsheet above, where you can view the performance of each wrestler live during the basho and feel free to send any questions or suggestions.
As always, enjoy the basho (especially the math)!
