I tried writing to you in a couple of different ways, but I'm not sure my notes made it through.
Thank you for your posts. I really enjoy reading them.
You wrote:
> I can’t find the paper, but I am aware that there was a 1985 paper “debunking” the hot hand in basketball. However, there has been more research showing why the ‘85 paper may have been flawed, so we would be on semi firm ground here at least
Check out Leonard Mlodinow's book The Drunkard's Walk. Mlodinow co-authored books with Stephen Hawking. This book has a number of examples debunking winning and losing streaks in everything from gambling to baseball to movie executives. It's a very interesting and informing book.
Your dynasty system hands out points too freely and deducts them too rarely(even assuming that you are counting kyujos as MKs which you should). It devolves into a lifetime ranking system, as basically no Yokozuna is going to fall below 0 once they rise above it. Hakuho and Musashimaru, just as a couple examples off the top of my head, went 8+ years competing in every tournament with no MKs. It's probably just more useful to define individual categories(3 tournament peak, 1 year peak, 3 year peak, 5 year peak, 10 year peak) and find the best such runs. I wouldn't be surprised if Hakuho leads all of them, assuming you are only counting modern era.
Creating the elo system is going to be the hardest part, but from there calculating streaks should be quite straightforward. Just take a look at a bunch of H2H matchups and see whether there's a trend where rikishi with better H2Hs outperform their elo.
For best Ozeki basho I assume that you mean either 1963.07 or 2012.07 depending on what you value.(psychologically speaking, I assume you mean 1963.07 as 2012.07 wasn't that long ago and pretty famous)
I'm also going to add some pretty well-known stuff about extra Sekiwake slots that your recent article gets wrong:
Since about 2006 or so, the banzuke committee got much stricter about handing out extra Sekiwake slots. The only real way to do it, is to get 11+ wins from Komusubi. Some counterexamples for other rank/records:
Three out of the last six to do so landed at Komusubi, including Daieisho after 10-5 from M2 and 13-2 from M1, denying him a chance at an ozeki run. The only counterexample here is Takayasu. The general consensus is that with Shodai being demoted that basho, there were only two Y/O left: Terunofuji and Takakeisho, both struggling with injury. Takayasu had 23 wins over his last two bashos and they wanted to give him a chance to win back Ozeki and hopefully bring some stability.
Two other one-off occurences, both involving Covid. When Asanoyama lost his Ozeki rank during his demotion, he would have normally taken the second Ozeki spot. However, the banzuke committee felt that it would have been unfair to deny someone a Sekiwake promotion due to Asanoyama's punishment, as normally he would have retained his Ozeki spot and a spot would have been open, so Meisei was promoted with a 8-7 from K as if Asanoyama was not there.
Similarly, Daieisho's Sekiwake spot was frozen when he was forced to pull out due to Covid with a 6-6. Since he didn't actually keep his Sekiwake spot through wins, they treated it as opening up a new spot to let him keep his rank, and Hoshoryu was promoted with a 9-6.
In the 1990s they gave out extra Sekiwake spots like candy, but times have changed and 11+ wins from Komusubi is the only reliable way to open a new Sekiwake spot
Aloha, Michael,
I tried writing to you in a couple of different ways, but I'm not sure my notes made it through.
Thank you for your posts. I really enjoy reading them.
You wrote:
> I can’t find the paper, but I am aware that there was a 1985 paper “debunking” the hot hand in basketball. However, there has been more research showing why the ‘85 paper may have been flawed, so we would be on semi firm ground here at least
Check out Leonard Mlodinow's book The Drunkard's Walk. Mlodinow co-authored books with Stephen Hawking. This book has a number of examples debunking winning and losing streaks in everything from gambling to baseball to movie executives. It's a very interesting and informing book.
Keep up the good work.
Cheers,
John
Thank you! And apologies for not getting back. I did see the email and thought I responded but alas it seems not.
That definitely sounds interesting and like something worth looking into. Thanks for reading and thanks for the suggestion!
Some notes:
Your dynasty system hands out points too freely and deducts them too rarely(even assuming that you are counting kyujos as MKs which you should). It devolves into a lifetime ranking system, as basically no Yokozuna is going to fall below 0 once they rise above it. Hakuho and Musashimaru, just as a couple examples off the top of my head, went 8+ years competing in every tournament with no MKs. It's probably just more useful to define individual categories(3 tournament peak, 1 year peak, 3 year peak, 5 year peak, 10 year peak) and find the best such runs. I wouldn't be surprised if Hakuho leads all of them, assuming you are only counting modern era.
Creating the elo system is going to be the hardest part, but from there calculating streaks should be quite straightforward. Just take a look at a bunch of H2H matchups and see whether there's a trend where rikishi with better H2Hs outperform their elo.
For best Ozeki basho I assume that you mean either 1963.07 or 2012.07 depending on what you value.(psychologically speaking, I assume you mean 1963.07 as 2012.07 wasn't that long ago and pretty famous)
I'm also going to add some pretty well-known stuff about extra Sekiwake slots that your recent article gets wrong:
Since about 2006 or so, the banzuke committee got much stricter about handing out extra Sekiwake slots. The only real way to do it, is to get 11+ wins from Komusubi. Some counterexamples for other rank/records:
10win Komusubi: https://sumodb.sumogames.de/Query.aspx?show_form=0&form1_rank=K&form1_wins=10&form1_year=2006-2024
4 10-win Komusubis fail to get promoted, with none opening up a new spot.
12+ high Maegashira: https://sumodb.sumogames.de/Query.aspx?show_form=0&form1_rank=M1-M3&form1_wins=12-15&form1_year=2006-2024
Three out of the last six to do so landed at Komusubi, including Daieisho after 10-5 from M2 and 13-2 from M1, denying him a chance at an ozeki run. The only counterexample here is Takayasu. The general consensus is that with Shodai being demoted that basho, there were only two Y/O left: Terunofuji and Takakeisho, both struggling with injury. Takayasu had 23 wins over his last two bashos and they wanted to give him a chance to win back Ozeki and hopefully bring some stability.
Two other one-off occurences, both involving Covid. When Asanoyama lost his Ozeki rank during his demotion, he would have normally taken the second Ozeki spot. However, the banzuke committee felt that it would have been unfair to deny someone a Sekiwake promotion due to Asanoyama's punishment, as normally he would have retained his Ozeki spot and a spot would have been open, so Meisei was promoted with a 8-7 from K as if Asanoyama was not there.
Similarly, Daieisho's Sekiwake spot was frozen when he was forced to pull out due to Covid with a 6-6. Since he didn't actually keep his Sekiwake spot through wins, they treated it as opening up a new spot to let him keep his rank, and Hoshoryu was promoted with a 9-6.
In the 1990s they gave out extra Sekiwake spots like candy, but times have changed and 11+ wins from Komusubi is the only reliable way to open a new Sekiwake spot