| Brothers in Sumo – part two Brian Lewin |
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| Yokozuna Comparisons Joe Kuroda |
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| Rikishi of Old John Gunning |
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| Heya Peek Barbara Ann Klein |
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| SFM Interview John Gunning |
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| Sumo 101 Barbara Ann Klein |
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| Photo Bonanza See the Hatsu Basho |
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| Hatsu Basho Review Lon Howard |
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| Lower Division Rikishi Mikko Mattila |
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| Haru Basho Forecast Pierre Wohlleben & Mark Buckton |
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| Kimarite Focus Mikko Mattila |
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| Minusha John McTague |
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| Online Gaming Alexander Nitschke |
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| Kokugi Connections Todd Lambert |
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| Fan Debate Feb's debate sees |
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SFM Cartoons
Benny Loh & Stephen Thompson
In the third of our cartoon bonanzas, sit back and enjoy BL’s offerings and put a caption to ST’s pic to win yourselves a banzuke
| Let’s Hear From You What was it that |
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| Readers’ Letters See what some SFM |
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Sumo Quiz
The Quizmaster
Answer the Qs and win yourself next basho’s banzuke.
The players play for the Hoshitori yusho, which is awarded to the player with the most points. But there is more to the game as each player gets a banzuke rank in the Hoshitori banzuke, and can try to get promoted to ozeki, or even yokozuna. Promotion to yokozuna is difficult, but not impossible as the four currently active Hoshitori yokozuna prove.
Over time, the game got its own simple homepage to archive past results and it became an inaugural member of the Super Banzuke, yet remains mainly as a game on the Sumo Mailing List – where it all started.
Hoshitori Game
Home
Each issue we ask the creators
from the online sumo gaming world
to tell us just what makes their games tick.
Enjoy.
There is no shortage of Sumo Games on the Internet nowadays as the newest count of active games lists a total of 45. There are even enough games and players to support a regular column in this magazine.
All this started with the Hoshitori Game at a time when the World Wide Web didn’t have nearly as many sites online to become informed about Ozumo as there are today. The best way to get the news was through the Sumo Mailing List, and this was also the place the first Internet Sumo Game began.
The game was invented by David Riley and started with the 1994 Nagoya Basho, with just 13 players. One of the original players, Obana, is still
an active participant. While the game administrator has changed a few times, the number of players as of the 2006 Hatsu Basho was 184, making it one of the most popular games around.
What has changed just a little over time are the rules of the game, but the basic rules are simple enough to make the game appealing to every sumo fan. Just pick the 13 makuuchi rikishi you think will be winners over the 15 days of the basho, and line them up from 13 points to 1 point. Then your top guy gets 13 points for each win, the next man gets 12 points, and so on.
Some tweaks were built into the game to make it more
