Fantasy Sumo, Explained
Welcome to fantasy sumo! Here’s a list of over twenty fantasy games to choose from, briefly explained so you have some idea what you’re getting into. Each game has an associated Nerd Level, from 1 to 10. The nerdier the game is, the more thoroughly knowledge of the sport and/or game theory will help you create an effective strategy.
Don’t let a high nerd score scare you off, though. New fans and non-gamers can and do succeed at nerdy games! Nerdy games are like those board games that come in enormous boxes—there are more ways to optimize how you play. But you don’t have to optimize to have fun and do well.
In short, less nerdy games are especially good for newcomers or non-gamers. Nerdier games are for those who really want to test their sumo knowledge or enjoy games that allow for a deeper level of strategy and consideration.
——————————————
Kachi Clash: Pick five top-division wrestlers you think will combine to win the most matches during the upcoming basho. Kachi Clash has orders of magnitude more players than any other fantasy game, and it’s a great place to dip your toes into the fantasy sumo scene. Plus, if you like being consistently good at games, KC has its own banzuke that rewards players for playing well over the course of the last year, not just the most recent tournament.
Nerd Level: 1
——————————————
Stablemasters: Pick six top-division wrestlers you think will combine to win the most matches during the upcoming basho. Yes, it is very similar to Kachi Clash, but with a little more flexibility in your choices. Stablemasters has its own rating system to reward good long-term play, statistics on how wrestlers have done in recent tournaments, and even private bashos where up to sixteen people can compete solely against each other. If you dig Kachi Clash and are happy to play another game with the same premise, Stablemasters is for you.
Nerd Level: 2
——————————————
The Superbanzuke isn’t a game in and of itself. It was developed in 2002 to gauge how players compared to each other across a selection of nine fantasy sumo games. In 2004, the creators invented the SB Masters series, where players earned points for top-10 finishes in those games and tried to score the most points each basho, and the Sumo Games World Championship, which went to whoever earned the most Masters series points each year.
Oh, and the number of games included expanded to nineteen.
And it’s continued like that for twenty years, giving it (probably) the longest history of any large-scale fantasy league in the world. Sumo fantasy gamers are GIGANTIC, and dedicated, nerds.
The following games make up the Superbanzuke. Play as many or as few as you wish! It is absolutely not necessary to play all nineteen—relatively few people do. Even a lot of otherwise hardcore gamers leave a few out, and lots of people only play one or two or three that they particularly enjoy. But I think it’s good to know that these games have both a long history and a larger community that you can be a part of, if you so choose.
——————————————————————
PRE-BASHO GAMES: Games which only require making selections before the basho starts.
——————————————————————
Guess the Banzuke: If you watch our YouTube videos at all, you’ve heard of Guess the Banzuke. The premise is simple: guess where all forty-two rikishi in the top division will be ranked for the upcoming basho. When you know how the system works, most placements can be logically deduced (and that’s one of the main things we talk about on the channel when discussing the banzuke). But solving for the maybe picks is where the challenge lies—it’s part experience, part logic, and part art form. (Check out the supremely excellent GTB Helper to get started on your Guess the Banzuke entry!)
Nerd Level: 6
——————————————
Roto Sumo: You can tell how long Roto Sumo’s been around from the name—a callback to rotisserie leagues, which are basically fantasy sports leagues but hardly anyone’s called them that since about 1831. It’s the precursor to Kachi Clash and Stablemasters, and lets you make as many picks as both of them combined—eleven (eight from makuuchi and three from juryo). The scoring system isn’t purely based on wins, but rather based on who your wrestlers beat. Thus, it’s more important for your higher-ranked picks to do well than your juryo guys. In the end, though, like in those other games, you’re really just picking the guys you think will win the most.
Nerd Level: 3
——————————————
Sekitori-Oracle: The first of four games run on Golynohana’s very nice website, Oracle is the easiest to understand and play. All you do is predict everyone’s final record—in both makuuchi and juryo! (“Sekitori” refers to all the wrestlers in those two divisions.) Getting all those right is, of course, pretty challenging, and realistically you’re just trying to get close on as many guys as possible. Some knowledge of whether certain wrestlers are way too good or not nearly good enough for their current rank, or are dealing with injuries, also helps a lot with this game. But it’s so easy to play that it’s another good starting point for players new to fantasy sumo.
Nerd Level: 3
——————————————
SalaryCap Sumo: Another Golynohana game, SalaryCap Sumo takes a page from some other large-scale fantasy games and lets you pick a roster of up to ten wrestlers. Each wrestler has a cost based on recent performance, and you have $1000 to spend in total. This game is especially good because the point system is well-balanced—you can guarantee yourself more wins by taking a lot of pretty good wrestlers at a relatively low cost, but the bonus points awarded if members of your team win the tournament, finish second (jun-yusho), or win special prizes means you still need to try and make picks who you think will snag those bonuses. It gives you a lot to think about, but it’s one of the best fantasy games in terms of offering tricky and intriguing decisions rather than obvious ones, and rewarding a good level of knowledge about the sport.
Nerd Level: 6
——————————————
Hoshitori: Hoshitori is another pick-the-best-wrestlers game, but with a different format. Unlike KC, Stablemasters, and Roto Sumo, where everyone is split into brackets and you pick one wrestler from each bracket, in Hoshitori you choose any thirteen makuuchi wrestlers you want.
The challenge is placing them in the best order, where your #1 guy scores the most points (13 per win) and your #13 guy scores the fewest (1 per win). Getting your top five or so picks right is frequently crucial, and many a player has had their team wrecked by one of their top picks getting injured. But having a strong overall roster can also make up for something going wrong up top, and the overall format rewards understanding not just who’s the best, but who’s most likely to do the best (which isn’t always the same thing).
Nerd Level: 4
——————————————
Upside Down Hoshitori: As the name implies, this is very similar to Hoshitori, except you pick the thirteen wrestlers you think will do the worst. The scoring system is different, though; your #1 pick (who you think will do the worst) is worth six points per loss, then the next two are worth five, and so on. Your whole team is much more important here. On the flip side, it’s often easier to figure out who’s likely to do badly, so UDH isn’t any harder to play than Hoshitori; the challenge is simply different.
Nerd Level: 4
——————————————
Juryo Game: Some games include the juryo division, but this is the only one focused on it. And this game absolutely challenges your knowledge of wrestlers outside the top division. Even if you hear a few names that are expected to do well, you need to pick eight juryo wrestlers who you think will total the most wins (and tag one of them to be worth double the points).
On top of that, you also choose one low-ranked wrestler in makuuchi who you think will do poorly (ie. likely to drop back to juryo), one high-ranked makushita wrestler who used to be in juryo to do well (ie. return to juryo), and one high-ranked makushita wrestler who’s never been in juryo to do well (ie. make their juryo debut). It’s easy to play—just make picks—but doing well means making a point of learning more about the second division, and even the top guys in division three.
Nerd Level: 6
——————————————
Paper Oyakata: This is quite similar to Hoshitori, except you can only choose maegashira wrestlers (no san’yaku), and your roster runs ten deep instead of thirteen. You do get three alternates in case any of your picks drop out of the tournament (Hoshitori offers one), and there are bonus points if your wrestlers beat the yokozuna or an ozeki.
However, while the game is run on a secure site, it still has a major security flaw in that your password shows up in the URL. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t play, just that you should use a different password for this game than you have for anything else.
Nerd Level: 4
——————————————
Ozumo Bingo: This is a game that’s so different in concept from anything else, it’s strategically fascinating even while you’re still trying to figure out a good strategy. Essentially, you pick nine wrestlers, but you set them up on a tic-tac-toe grid. Each day, you get a point for every win your wrestlers get, but also bonus points for each line they form with their wins. Your center square covers four lines, so that’s where you want your best wrestler, and your next best four should go in the corners (those touch three lines; the outside middles touch two). But, since you can only make lines if everyone in that line wins, and they can’t all win if they fight each other, an understanding of schedule creation and being able to minimize how often wrestlers on a line face each other is also quite useful.
On top of that, like with Paper Oyakata, you can only pick maegashira wrestlers, and there are also bonus points for beating the yokozuna and ozeki. That gives a little more reason to consider high maegashira wrestlers (more matches against yokozuna and ozeki), even though they have harder schedules. It’s a lot to think about, and I’m still figuring out the best approach.
Unfortunately, on top of being played on a non-secure site, it also suffers from Paper Oyakata’s security issue of putting your password in the URL when you log in. Again, if you play, use a different password from anything else.
Nerd Level: 8
——————————————
Norizo Cup: The Norizo Cup makes you think harder than any other sumo fantasy game, and it’s not even close. It’s a questionnaire that asks all sorts of questions related to predictions for the upcoming basho. These go way deeper than “who’s going to win”-type questions; for example, they ask who you think will win the yusho, but also how many wins they’ll have. There are also matchups where, say, one wrestler will get matched against two, and you have to pick whether or not either of the two will beat the one, and a slate of questions whose basic premises are specific to the upcoming basho.
The questions are unique to Norizo’s game and often make people think about details they hadn’t considered. However, the questionnaire takes time, and is often unavailable until 24-48 hours before the tournament starts, giving relatively little time to enter (most games are updated soon after the banzuke comes out two weeks before the tournament, and can be played right away). In addition, the questions are translated from Japanese, and what’s being asked can occasionally be difficult to discern. Nonetheless, 70-80 people play every basho, which gives you an idea of how enjoyable the game can be.
One more security warning: like Ozumo Bingo, the Norizo Cup is run on a non-secure site and puts your password in the URL. Use a different password for this game than anything else. (I promise this is the last game that requires this warning.)
Nerd Level: 10
——————————————————————
DAILY GAMES: Games which involve daily play.
——————————————————————
Sumo Game: One of the two classic head-to-head fantasy sumo games. Each day, you choose ten wrestlers who you think will win their matches. You’re matched against another player; whoever has the most correct picks wins. (Ties are broken by who has the most winners from the top of the list down, so put your best picks up high!)
Just like in real-life sumo, you play for fifteen days. If you finish with a winning record, you go up in rank for the next tournament, and with a losing record you go down. You can also set a lineup to automatically play if you won’t or might not have time to make daily picks. Very easy game to play, with the challenge of knowing and understanding matchups determining a lot in how well you end up doing.
Nerd Level: 5
——————————————
Bench Sumo: The other classic head-to-head fantasy sumo game. Bench Sumo is most like the other fantasy sports games new players are likely to have experienced—while there’s no draft, the ten wrestlers you choose form your roster, you have a starting lineup and a bench (five wrestlers in each), and you have a head-to-head matchup each day.
Just like in Sumo Game, finishing with a winning record after fifteen days moves you up in rank, a losing record moves you down, and you absolutely can get lucky (or unlucky) with respect to whether the wins you get mirror how well you’re actually playing. It’s trickier than Sumo Game in that you have to select a good roster to start with, and then be able to pick the winners out of that group each day. But it’s a fun game on its own, with a mailing list that adds in side competitions you can be a part of just by playing—no extra effort required. Probably the most engaging fantasy sumo game out there.
Note: Unlike the other games that use the same group login, Bench Sumo generally requires an administrator to add you to the game before you can play. Leaving a message on this thread is the quickest and easiest way to make that happen.
Nerd Level: 7
——————————————
Sekitori-Quad: The last of Golynohana’s games, Quad is a prime example of how deep down the strategic rabbit hole you can go with a single simple mechanic. In short, for fifteen days, you choose four wrestlers per day who you think will win that day’s match. The catch is that you can only pick each wrestler once per tournament. Given how much parity there is in sumo right now, and the fact very few matchups are truly locks for one wrestler to beat the other, it’s quite easy for a wrestler to finish with ten or eleven wins, but you pick them on their off day and don’t benefit from their overall strong performance. Knowledge of wrestler ability, matchups, and scheduling all come into play here.
It’s tough, and it can be a little frustrating, but it’s easy to understand and quick to play. At the very least, if you’re going to Goly’s site each day for Odd Sumo, this one’s worth playing as well.
Nerd Level: 8
——————————————
Odd Sumo: The third of Golynohana’s games, Odd Sumo is much more math-nerdy than sumo-nerdy. Each makuuchi wrestler is given odds of winning their match on a given day. These odds are based on their head-to-head with that particular opponent and their overall performance for the tournament. You start with thirty points, pick from three to six wrestlers each day who you think will win, and bet 1-3 points on your slate of picks. If they all win, you win! But if anyone loses, you lose for that day.
The game’s quality is based on how balanced the odds are. You can pick heavy favorites, but any dumb loss in the group means you lose your points, and even winning doesn’t pay off very much. Learning when someone who’s correctly considered an underdog, but worth the risk given their odds, is key. It’s a unique setup, and if you like playing odds, it’s absolutely the game for you.
Nerd Level: 8
——————————————
Internet Sumo Pool: The easiest game of all. ISP puts forth a single match for the coming day, and you pick who you think will win. ISP even shows you their head-to-head history! The only thing that keeps it from being nerd level 1 is that the chosen match is expected to be competitive, and thus it’s hard to pick a winner.
Nerd Level: 2
——————————————
Chain Gang: Chain Gang is sumo’s survivor league. Each day, you pick one person who you think will win out of everyone in both makuuchi and juryo. The only restrictions are that you can’t pick a yokozuna, you can’t pick an ozeki until day ten, and you can only pick any single wrestler up to three times. The game seems like it should be easy for the first several days, but then someone loses a match they shouldn’t…
Chain Gang doesn’t require good luck, it just requires avoiding bad luck. If you can do that, you’ll do great.
Nerd Level: 4
——————————————
Turn the Tide: Turn the Tide looks simple, feels simple, but once you start playing you realize there’s more to think about than it appears at a glance. Each day you pick one wrestler who currently has a losing record to win, and one who currently has a winning record to lose. Sometimes that’s challenging, but frequently there are clear favorites.
The trick is that you score tiebreaker points based on your pick’s record versus their opponent’s. For example, if you pick someone who’s 5-7 to beat someone who’s 7-5, if you’re right, you get two points. But if you pick that person to beat someone who’s 3-9, you’ll lose two points. And unless you’re able to nail just about every single day correctly, you’ll need to outscore plenty of people on the tiebreaker to finish high in the standings. Finding good picks that will also score you points is a fun challenge, but it is a challenge.
Nerd Level: 6
——————————————
Deutsches Sumo-Tipspiel: What is that, German? Yup—DST is played on a German forum. Google Translate does well enough so you can see what’s going on, and even if it doesn’t work for some reason, it’s still easy to figure everything out—the thread called “Tag” is where you make your picks, and “Ergebnisse” is the previous day’s results.
As for the game itself, it’s a six-match pick ‘em. Where ISP serves up one challenging match to pick, DST gives you six. Order your picks from five points to zero (the zero is there as a replacement in case one of the six matches doesn’t happen), and you’re good to go. They do a great job of selecting matches where you’re never completely sold on one wrestler or the other, which will massively appeal to some and frustrate the hell out of others. But if every pick was easy, what game would there be?
Nerd Level: 5
——————————————
Sekitori-Toto: Easy game—just pick the winner in every makuuchi and juryo match each day.
OK, it’s simple, not easy. But, unlike the other games on this list where you pick daily winners, there’s no mechanic that skews the value of some wrestlers over others or limits your choices. Each win is a point, and each X pick—not picking a winner because you’re completely unsure who will win—is worth a half-point. You’re incentivized to guess rather than make X picks because the tiebreaker is, essentially, a bravery system; you score higher for making picks that go against the majority, and nothing for choosing X. So, if you think a match is a completely 50/50, you’re still better off flipping a coin than not choosing anyone.
It’s still quite nerdy because your understanding of the sport and the athletes has to be pretty deep to consistently do well, and a solid connection with the vibes of the universe helps as well. But it’s as straightforward as a game can be.
Nerd Level: 6
——————————————
One last source of fantasy games is the Sumo Forum. This bulletin board for sumo fans has been around since just after the dawn of time, and a number of easy-to-play games can be found amongst its threads.
Sekitori Sweepstake: The easiest fantasy game of all time. Just announce you’re playing and that’s it. Everyone in the game has a random wrestler drawn for them, and their score is whatever their wrestler’s record is at the end of the basho. Weirdly entertaining! Nerd Level: 0.5
The Underdog Game: Choose a winner from all the lower-ranked makuuchi wrestlers in each day’s matches. The bigger the gap in rank between the wrestlers, the more points you score if you win. Nerd Level: 2
Break the Curse: Choose a winner from all the wrestlers who are losing the head-to-head record with their opponent for the day. Wrestlers who win with despite a worse head-to-head record score more points (e.g. someone who’s 1-2 against their opponent scores one point, but someone who’s 1-9 against them scores eight), with bonus points for each correct guess as well. Nerd Level: 3
Guess Ura’s Aite: An “aite” is an opponent, so this game is literally to predict who will next be scheduled to face Ura. This is all about understanding how sumo scheduling works, which is unbelievably nerdy and wonderful. Nerd Level: 8
Game 21: Twenty-one theoretical matchups are made amongst the wrestlers in makuuchi before the basho starts. You guess which one of them will win, or if they’ll fight at all. An understanding of how scheduling works, and can change depending on performance, is useful on top of knowing who’s the favorite in any given matchup. Nerd Level: 7
Pick the Yusho Winners: Choose who you think will win the tournament in each division, all the way down to division six (jonokuchi). Not many people pay attention to the sport all the way down to the bottom, but this is a very easy-to-play game that can give you a reason to do so (if you’re looking for one). Nerd Level: 5
Long Kachikoshi Streaks: Winning records, also known as kachi-koshis, are one of the hallmarks of sumo. Even if you barely scratch out more wins than losses, that’s what helps you ascend the ranks. And, eventually, almost everyone hits a point where they can’t do it consistently anymore. In LKS, you’re given a list of wrestlers who have at least four consecutive winning records, and you predict whether or not each one will continue that streak. Some of them are easy; some are guys you’ve probably never heard of. Time to do some research! Nerd Level: 5