Kumi game - rules

Arranging the team

You select 7 Makunouchi rikishi in the following composition:

1. In case there are two or more new Makunouchi wrestlers (shinnyumaku), who have never been in Makuuchi ranks before, you must select one of them.

2. You can pick the other six as you wish, with the proviso that you can pick only one from each rank above Maegashira.

3. It is not obligatory to pick wrestlers from ranks above Maegashira, your team can contain 7 Maegashira, too.

4. You also have to pick a substitute Maegashira for case somebody withdraws during the tournament. Your original rikishi and the substitute will be "merged" into a fictitious rikishi (in viewpoint of kachi/make koshi etc.)

Substitute must play during at least 10 days to bring you extra scores after the special prizes he gets on the tournament.

In case the withdrawn (original) rikishi returns during the basho, his scores will be counted again. Also, the substitute automatically takes the place of the next withdrawn rikishi (if there is any), in the order you sent them in your entry.

In case there are more withdrawn rikishi during the basho, and the substitute already plays instead of an other rikishi in the team, all missed days of all further missing rikishi will be counted as a loss.

Announcement of the game and the Application Form

The Application Form can be found here. 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. The deadline is 14:00 JST on Saturday preceding the first day (shonichi) of the actual tournament. You can modify your team as many times as you want until the deadline.

Please remember that you have to fill in the on-line form and no e-mail entries are accepted.

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.

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. You will get number of wins of your rikishi as base score.

2. Extra scores:

a. Scores got individually

• Kachi-koshi: +5 points per rikishi
• Make-koshi: -5 points per rikishi
• If you have the basho winner: +10 points
• If the winner is a Maegashira, extra +3 points
• Special prize winners: +5 points per prize
• If your Maegashira won against a Yokozuna (kinboshi), +5 points
• If your Maegashira won against an Ozeki (ginboshi), +3 points
• If your Maegashira won against a Komusubi or Sekiwake (doboshi), +2 points
• If your rikishi won against the (future) winner, +5 points
• If your Maegashira gets at least 10 wins, +3 points

The newbie Maegashira, whom you put to the place #7, also gets +1 point in the following categories:

• Kinboshi, ginboshi, doboshi (5+1,3+1 ill. 2+1)
• Getting 10 or more wins (3+1), special prize (5+1 per prize)
• tournament win (10+3+1 = 14)
• in cases listed below, for the winning kimarite (1+1 ill. 3+1)
  A 0-point kimarite naturally does not bring 0+1 point :)

b. Scores got by your team

If at least 4 of your seven rikishi finishes with kachi-koshi, you get +10 points
If at least 4 of your seven rikishi finishes with make-koshi, you get -10 points added to your final score.

Note:

If a selected rikishi wins without having bout (fusensho), it will only increase your base score by one point, no extra scores will be added to his daily result (for example if his opponent would be a yokozuna, this win will not mean a kinboshi).

Naturally, if you put a non-newbie to the place #7 (when there are no two newbies on the banzuke and you didn't pick the only newbie), the extra +1 scores listed above, WON'T BE ADDED.

See also part "Extra scores for kimarite"

Extra scores for kimarite

Winning techniques of the rikishi are bringing scores, too. The more various methods use a rikishi for winning the more scores you will get. There are three categories of winning techniques in Kumi:

1. Most often used technics (0 points)

All those kimarite, number of which occurrence was a double-digit number on the previous tournament (typically yorikiri and oshidashi) as well as some other frequently used kimarite, also the prohibited technics (kinjite) as well as fusensho.

You will not get any extra scores for these kimarite.

2. Rare technics (3 points)

Definition of "rare kimarite": all those kimarite, which did not appear among winning technics in Makuuchi division during the past two years (12 basho) one year (6 basho).

The winning rikishi gets 3 extra points for such a kimarite.

3. Other technics (1 point)

Or, "not too frequent, but also not too rare" technics.

All those kimarite, which appeared among winning technics in Makuuchi division during the past two years (12 basho) one year (6 basho), but their number on the last basho did not reach 10.

The game master announces the value of each kimarite at the same time when he announces the new game.

Converting scores to "sumo-like" results (kekka)

a. Each player participating in a basho will have their final position converted into "win-loss equivalent" score. This makes the highest and lowest possible scores 15-0 and 0-15, as in real sumo. This means, for example, that for the equivalent of kachi-koshi (8-7), you need to be in the top 46.7% of the table.  A player can get a 15-0 score if he reaches at least 90% of the most acquireable scores (DT) or 14-1 if he gets the 80% of it. "DT" is the totalized score of the Dream Team, the seven-member team of real rikishi who made the most points during the basho.

Method of calculation:

Step 1: determining value of DT - this is unambiguously the score of the Dream Team (DT)

Step 2: determining winning order of the players by the final scores.

Step 3: determining kachi-koshi boundary: to get kachi-koshi, a player must finish the game in the upper 46.7% of the result table. Score of the player in the lowest kachi-koshi position will be the kachi-koshi point (K).

Step 4: determining of the winning result - this is unambiguously the score of player in the first place (Max)

Step 5: determining of the kachi-koshi step:  L1 = (DT * 0,8 – K) / 6.

Step 6: determining of the lowest score – this is unambiguously the score of player in the first place (Min).

Step 7: determining of the make-koshi step: L2 = (K – Min) / 8.

Step 8: determining of the score boundaries by the followings:

   DT*0,9 -            15 -  0
   DT*0,8 – DT*0,9-1   14 -  1
   K+5*L1 - K+6*L1-1   13 -  2
   K+4*L1 - K+5*L1-1   12 -  3
   K+3*L1 - K+4*L1-1   11 -  4
   K+2*L1 - K+3*L1-1   10 -  5
   K+1*L1 - K+2*L1-1    9 -  6
   K      - K+1*L1-1    8 -  7
   K-1*L2 - K-1         7 -  8
   K-2*L2 - K-1*L2-1    6 -  9
   K-3*L2 - K-2*L2-1    5 - 10
   K-4*L2 - K-3*L2-1    4 - 11
   K-5*L2 - K-4*L2-1    3 - 12
   K-6*L2 - K-5*L2-1    2 – 13
   K-7*L2 - K-6*L2-1    1 - 14
          - K-7*L2-1    0 - 15

Makushita

   DT*0,9 -            7 - 0
   DT*0,8 - DT*0,9-1   6 - 1
   K+1*L1 - K+2*L1-1   5 - 2
   K      - K+1*L1-1   4 - 3
   K-1*L1 - K-1        3 - 4
   K-2*L1 - K-1*L1-1   2 - 5
   K-3*L1 - K-2*L1-1   1 - 6
          - K-3*L1-1   0 - 7

In case of equal points the following method is used to determine the order:

1. Total score
2. Number of wins of the rikishi
3. Scores got on the given day
4. Lower rank on the banzuke

If after all of these there is still a tie situation, the determining factor will be the date and time of sending in the entry. Naturally, if a player sent in more entries, for example corrections, we will take date and time of the last entry.

Winner of the tournament is that player who collects the most points by the end of the game. In case there are more such players, we determine the winner with the method described above in 2/b. 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".

• 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

Number of players in the divisions

Players are playing in divisions, there number is the same as in divisions in real sumo: Makunouchi - 42, Juryo - 28, Makushita - 120.

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 10 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.