Re: Ranking Movement Tracking

["Peter J. Parbrook" <P.Parbrook@sheffield.ac.uk>]

> General guideline among Maegashira rikishi are that the difference between
> wins and losses are the numbers of promotion and demotion. This is not at all
> a strict guideline. Kachikoshi's promotion has much higher priority than
> keeping makekoshi rikishi's demotion "fairly".
> 

Abe-san,

You are quite right about all you wrote, but there is an exception to 
the fair demotion rule: Even if four rikishi in Juryo put together 
records that 'fairly' would see them as shin-nyumaku.  Makuuchi 
rikishi will not be 'unfairly' demoted to Juryo to make way for them. 

It does, however, raise the question that if J1E goes 10-5 and J1W 
12-3 for example and there is only one conceivable demotion from 
Makuuchi, what would the sumo association do.  My guess is that J1E 
would get the nod for his Kachikoshi means he has to go up.  And J1W 
would have to try an reproduce the form the next time...?  

A similar rule can be said to operate between Juryo and Makushita,
where the effects of being the wrong side of the divide is like
falling from heaven to hell: one minute a tsukebito of your own, the
next you're back as a tsukebito for one of your former sekitori
colleagues.   I believe that rikishi with long records in Makuuchi
and Juryo do not normally have to do such tasks if they fall to
Makushita, but for short lived sekitori it literally is like that. 
The basho after Sentoryu lost his sekitori status he was back as
tsukebito for Kaio!

Personally I find guessing promotions and demotions quite fun and I 
must confess to be sad about the apparent demise of the Guess the 
Banzuke game.  The usual fact is that based on the general rule of a 
promotion/demotion of roughtly the difference in the win/loss ranks 
would leave a vacuum for M2-M5 rikishi.   How it is filled -- by 
reduced demotions and  increased promotions is the hardest thing to 
predict in my view.

Cheers

Peter

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Dr. Peter J. Parbrook
Lecturer
University of Sheffield
Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering
Mappin Street
Sheffield
S1 3JD
U.K. 

Tel : +44-114-22-25366  *** New Number ****
Fax : +44-114-272-6391

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