Description of the game

From the list of the bouts of the following day, players pick six bouts (whichever they want) and try to guess their result. Primarily, players have to guess the winning technique (kimarite) of the bouts. The kimarite are grouped by their character, and they have a point value depending on frequency of their appearance. Grouping  and the actual point values can be seen on this page.

There are all bouts of both Makunouchi and Juryo divisions listed on the daily tip-list, but it is not obligatory to pick bouts from both divisions.

Besides the winning technique, players also try to guess the winner of the given bout.

If a player misses a day during the tournament, it counts as a yasumi and will bring 0 points for the player on that day.

Announcement of the game and the Application Form

Player must register himself here. The deadline is 14:00 JST on Saturday preceding the first day (shonichi) of the actual tournament. After pressing the Send button, your entry will be accepted by the system (you will get error messages if you forget something or make error in the selection). You also will receive a confirmation message by e-mail.

You also have to pick 10 rikishi and a kimarite group to each of them. This will be the set of your base tips, which will have its function when you for some reason can not send your daily tips. If there is no tip from you on the given day, six rikishi will be picked from your base tip, in that order, in which you give them at the registration. Naturally, if there will be bouts between those rikishi, whom you selected into the base tip, only one will be selected, that one, who is standing in your list in better position.

Announcement of the new game is in the week of publishing of the new banzuke. At the same time, the table with kimarite point values will be published, too.

Please do not forget that you have to fill in the form and we do not accept any entry in e-mail.

The system uploads the bouts automatically as soon as they are released on Nihon Sumo Kyokai's server. Then players can send their entries after it until 2pm Japan Time on each game day (which is 6am CET, but 7am CET during Daylight Saving Time). We can not accept entries arriving after the deadline. The entry page can be found here.

You can follow the daily state of the game at these places:

1. On the Hungarian-language sumo mailing list
2. In Sumo games subforum of Sumoforum.net, in topic of the actual basho
3. Here, on the website of the game

Scoring

1. Scores, given for each correct guess of the group of the kimarite can be seen in the separate table announced before each tournament.

2. Extra scores:

a. Scores given for correct guess of the winner of a bout:

If the loser is higher ranked: 2 points
           from the same rank:  1 point
                    lower ranked:  0 pont

b. Maegashira winner defeating a Yokozuna gets 5 points. (In the terms of the game this win is called kinboshi or golden star).

c. Maegashira winner defeating an Ozeki gets 3 points. (In the terms of the game this win is called ginboshi or silver star).

d. In case of fusensho (e.g. default win without a real bout) the player does not get any point for this bout, this win can not be counted as a kin/ginboshi (in case the loser is a Yokozuna or Ozeki), but if the player picked the winner, this win will be counted in determining the extra scores listed below in paragraph e.

e. Further extra scores given for extremely good daily performance can be seen in this table.

Determining of the daily result (kekka)

Determining of kekka-points happens daily, based on list of players sorted by daily scores. Those players will get a daily win (shiroboshi), who are in the upper 46.7% of the result table. In case of tie, the quotient of [daily total score / (total guessed daily kimarite+winner)] will decide the daily order of players. The bigger number brings the higher position.

Players have right to leave out a tournament without any penalty. For the following tournament, player will keep his rank achieved on the previous tournament.

The player has this right only in case he participated on the previous tournament, so he may not leave out two or more consecutive basho. If the player will not participate on the following tournament, then his result will be 0-15 and will slide down on the banzuke.

If you wish to miss a tournament, you must send a notice about it to the address info@szumo.hu as soon as possible, but not later of expiring of the deadline.  In case of the first absence every player gets the kosho status automatically, e.g. even if you miss the deadline accidentally, and forget to notify us, you won't slide down the banzuke anyway. Naturally we can not give you the kosho status on your second or further missed basho.

Those players who miss three consecutive tournaments, will be removed from the banzuke. Naturally they can return to the game later, whenever they want, but they have to remember that in this case they have to begin at the bottom of the banzuke, in the lowest division.

We ask all those players who got bored of the game or have any other reason to leave it, to send us a notice to the e-mail address above, to make our work easier.

The winner is that player who collects the most kekka points in his division. In case of equal kekka points, the quotient [total score / (total kekka+winner guesses)] will determine the winner. The highest number is the winner. All divisions have their own tournament winners. If there are few players in a division, they are playing together with players of the next division and naturally they can win the yusho of that division, too. In this case Banzuke Council will make an announcement in the places described in section "Course of the game".

Special prizes (sansho)

The following are the general rules of giving out the prizes:

• Player is in Makuuchi division and his rank must be under Ozeki
• Player gets kachi-koshi on the basho
• If more players are qualified for the prize, tha player with better result will get it

Gino-sho
Goes to the player who collects the most points from the guessed kimarite. In case of tie, kimarite-points will be divided by the number of kimarite guesses, the player with the biggest result is the winner of the prize.

Number of players in the divisions

New players joining the game will be added to the first available place on the bottom of the banzuke (currently this is the Makushita division), in order of time of sending in their entries.

Totalizing the scores

We totalize the scores after each tournament, and at the end of the year, after November basho we announce the winners of the year. The winner gets a precious prize of high value from the winner of the previous year. "High value" does not mean it must be an expensive gift, it is always the winner of the previous year who defines what does it mean for him/her. In January we always begin with zero.

The Banzuke Council is the board of referee who supervise the game, it makes decisions in disputed situations, determines the final result of the game, as well as announces tournament and special prize winners, and releases the banzuke of the following tournament.

Current members of the Banzuke Council: Kachitakai, Nekonishiki and Andrasoyamawaka.

• sekiwake rank on the recent two tournaments
• kachi-koshi result on the recent four tournaments
• at least one yusho or jun-yusho (by kekka, not points) on the recent four tournaments
• at least 33 kekka points on the recent three basho

Conditions of promotion are examined only by results of active tournaments, so the player will not lose his chances for the promotion if he has to leave out a basho because of any reason, but only if he previously sent a note about his absence.

If an ozeki gets a make-koshi result on a tournament, he will receive kadoban status for the following basho. If he finishes this basho with make-koshi, too, then he will lose his rank. Nevertheless, if he can get at least 11 wins on the third tournament, he will get his ozeki rank back.

• ozeki rank on the recent two tournaments
• kachi-koshi result on the recent four tournaments
• at least two yusho or jun-yusho (by kekka, not points) on the recent four tournaments
• at least 36 kekka points on the recent three basho

Conditions of promotion are examined only by results of active tournaments, so the player will not lose his chances for the promotion if he has to leave out a basho because of any reason, but only if he previously sent a note about his absence.

Although it is not too elegant if a yokozuna has continuously weak performance, there is no pressure on them at all, it is entirely depends on their own decision if they continue playing or retire, and everybody has to respect this decision.