Re: Futagoyama

[osumo3@native.usc.edu (Olaf Meeuwissen)]

|> --- Begin redistributed message ---
|>
|> Subject: Re: Futagoyama
|> Date: Tue, 3 Aug 1993 16:48:41 +0200 (MET DST)
|> In-Reply-To: <9308031251.AA15201@native.usc.edu> from "Olaf Meeuwissen" at Aug 3, 93 05:51:14 am
|> Mime-Version: 1.0
|> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
|> From: Martin "J." Duerst <mduerst@ifi.unizh.ch>
|> Sender: mduerst@ifi.unizh.ch
|> 
|> >|> From: Steve E. Kissel <sek@space.mit.edu>
|> >|> Subject: Confirmation
|> >|> 
|> >|> The rule that rikishi from the same club are never matched
|> >|> during the regular tournament has become more evident now
|> >|> with the emergence of the Futagoyama (2 child mountain) team.
|> Futagoyama is better translated as twin mountain.
|> 
|> >|> After Akebono lost to Akinoshima in the last tournament it
|> >|> was a let down to know that no Akinoshima-Hanada matches
|> >|> would occur in the final days. I suppose there is a slight
|> >|> advantage to Akinoshima and Takanonami, as well as to the
|> >|> Hanadas.  At what point does the team become too big?
|> 
|> The advantage might be rather more than slight. Makunouchi consists
|> of about 40 wrestlers, of which a wrestler has to fight 15 in each
|> tournament. If 8 of fourty possible adversaries are ruled out, this
|> can give a heavy bias. In the middle and at the bottom of Makunouchi,
|> this might be balanced by fighting other wrestlers of similar strength.
|> 
|> However, at the top and just below, there are no equivalent wrestlers.
|> To calculate the actual advantage, you have then to multiply the possibility
|> of meeting one of these wrestlers by the difference in strength between
|> the possible and the actual opponent. E.g. probability of Takanohana
|> meeting Wakanohana if they are in different stables = 100%, probability
|> for winning for one of them ~= 50%, probability of winning against
|> other wrestler ~= 95% (this is a much weaker wrestler, as most of the
|> stronger ones are already fought against). This makes a gain of .45 points.
|> Give them another .35 or so against Akinoshima and another .25 against
|> Takanonomi or Takatoriki, and you are already above 1.0.
|> This means that the Hanada brothers would have ended with an average of
|> about 1 point less each tournament. And if you look at the difference in
|> points between the winner and the runner-up, you will realize that this
|> difference could have been responsible for many of the previous wins of
|> the two. A tournament victory or not isn't a slight difference, it's huge!
|> 
|> Now to the others like Akinoshima, Takanonami and so on. Not having to fight
|> the Hanadas is even a bigger advantage to them, because their chance of
|> loosing is greater. Also, there is an additional effect: The direct
|> opponents of the same rank get a much larger chance of having to fight
|> the Hanadas, as otherwise, there is not enough "fodder" available.
|> So the differential advantage for Akinoshima and consorts against
|> wrestlers in the same ranks may well be around two point, which again is
|> huge.
|> 
|> However, probably the biggest advantage of such a strong team is that
|> the strong wrestlers have many chances to exercise against strong opponents.
|> 
|> 
|> Whether a stable is too big depends on many things. If there are other big
|> stables, this might not be such a problem. In older times, even the
|> wrestlers of a "Ichi-mon" did not fight against each other, and there are
|> only 6 Ichi-mon. So several of them must have been as "huge" as Futagoyama-
|> team. If some foreign wrestlers are very strong (present situation), this
|> might create more tolerance against big teams. I do not know whether it
|> is possible (formally or informally) to force a team to split (antitrust
|> rules in sumo?). Probably not, as in that case, the merger of the
|> Futagoyama and Fujishima teams would not have been tolerated in the first
|> place. Who knows more?
|> ----
|> Dr.sc.  Martin J. Du"rst			    ' , . p y f g c R l / =
|> Institut fu"r Informatik			     a o e U i D h T n S -
|> der Universita"t Zu"rich			      ; q j k x b m w v z
|> Winterthurerstrasse  190			     (the Dvorak keyboard)
|> CH-8057   Zu"rich-Irchel   Tel: +41 1 257 43 16
|>  S w i t z e r l a n d	   Fax: +41 1 363 00 35   Email: mduerst@ifi.unizh.ch
|> $@%F%e!<%k%9%H!&%^!<%F%#%s!&%d%3%V!J%A%e!<%j%C%RBg3X>pJs2J3X2J!K(J
|> ----
|>
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