Daily play works as follows: each day submit your selection of 4 sekitori (= a "quadrumvirate") who you think will win that day.
Daily picks must be submitted before the deadline, which is
2pm (14:00h) Japan time, well before Juryo action begins.
If
at least 3 of your daily 4 rikishi win, you will receive a shiroboshi (win) for that day. If only two, one or none of them win, you will get a kuroboshi (loss). The player with the most shiroboshi at the end of the basho will, of course, win the yusho!
The twist of the game is: once you have selected a sekitori in your daily 4,
you may NOT use that rikishi again for the duration of the entire basho! In other words, you are expected to select 60 different sekitori over the course of the basho (4 for each of the 15 days).
So, strategy is needed! Do you use your "sure bet" top rankers early or late? Do you go heavy on Juryo rikishi on some days, or try to spread them out? Can you afford to "sacrifice" one of your daily 4 on an underachieving rikishi and hope the other 3 will pull through for you? And, by the end of the basho, if you don't play wisely, your available sekitori left to pick may be a rather shoddy bunch - so do you go for the strong start, or the big finish? And don't forget, rikishi may also go kyujo, which may further limit your choices late in the basho.
To start playing, go to
Golynohana's Sumo Site and
create an account. Username, password and email address are mandatory, while the personal details on the second page are optional (players are somewhat expected to select a country, however, under the flag of which they will be playing). You will further be prompted to enter a shikona (fighting name) for Seki-Quadrumvirate and its sister game Seki-Oracle; these do not need to be the same (nor do they necessarily have to match your username), but players customarily play all games under one shikona.
Please note that playing under multiple shikona in the SAME game is
highly discouraged and, if discovered, will lead to cancellation of all involved accounts and removal of the player from the game banzuke.
Before the start of each basho, log into your account, go to the
Quadrumvirate main page and
register for play. Once the Day 1 torikumi (schedule) is announced - typically on Friday before the basho - you will be able to
enter your daily picks using the ENTRY form. Each day, you can pick any 4 sekitori. Simply check the boxes next to the 4 rikishi you wish to enter, then SUBMIT your picks. You have the option to receive an email confirmation of your selections, to be sent to the address you specified when registering.
Once you have picked a rikishi, you will notice that on subsequent days that rikishi will be "greyed out" (or faded) and their check box will be replaced with a number indicating on which day they have been picked. These greyed-out rikishi can then no longer be picked - as per the game rules, each sekitori can only be picked ONCE per basho! You can change your selections for each day before the deadline passes, and as many times as you wish, but once the deadline for a day passes, your selections for that day become permanent, and that rikishi will not be pickable again that basho. Please note that Makushita rikishi who are fighting in Juryo on any day are NOT eligible to be picked. They will automatically appear "greyed out" and without a check box.
At the end of the basho, your selectable rikishi will be very limited in number and (depending on your strategy) quality - thus pulling out wins late in the basho is usually a very difficult and honorable feat! :)
Should you miss picking on one or more days, you will receive a "yasumi" (absence), which will count the same as a 0-4 kuroboshi (loss) for each day you missed. You may carry on with the game if and when you return. Any advantage you may gain from having "more pickable rikishi left over" than your opponents who picked every day should be offset by the fact that you scored a 0-4 loss for the day(s) you missed.
Note: There are no further selection limits in this game. Multiple Yokozuna or Ozeki may be picked on the same day to ensure (or perhaps not?) a win, and each sekitori division (Makuuchi and Juryo) may receive any number of picks between zero and four each day. There is also no rule against players picking BOTH rikishi facing each other in a bout (i.e. guaranteeing one point), but finding 2 "sure" winners for the other 2 spots is unlikely to be easier than getting 3 winners with a full complement of 4 picks on most days. You may also select only 3 rikishi on any day, but generally it is difficult enough to get a shiroboshi with 4, you would have to be quite adventurous to try it with only 3! :) But the option to pick 3 and "save" an additional rikishi for later days is there.
The overall standings will be visible on the Basho Results page, while detailed daily results can be found in the Stats section.
Should there be a tie for the yusho, the tie-breaker teams of each player swing into action. Each player's tie-breaker team will be
the 4 sekitori with the MOST TOTAL WINS that have NOT been picked by that player on any day during the basho. This tie-breaker team may include sekitori who actually went kyujo during the tourney, but still managed to be among your 4 winningest unpicked rikishi. Should there be a basho with too many withdrawals to allow a full 4-sekitori tie-breaker team, then whatever is left over will be used.
Should there still be a tie, the player with the higher-ranked set of rikishi on their tie-breaker team will win (i.e. the player who left more top-rankers
unpicked). For this tie-breaker rank score, the ranks of the 4 rikishi on your tie-breaker team will be summed, with the East Yokozuna rank worth 1 point and the Juryo 14 West rank worth 70 points.
If there STILL is a tie, then other scores accumulated during the basho will determine a winner, in the following order: Gino-sho score, Kanto-sho score, Shukun-sho score. If that all still doesn't work, the nod will go to the player ranked higher on the S4-Banzuke. Tie-breaker scores are shown on the Basho Results page, and may change rather dramatically each day depending on which rikishi are selected, and which of the remaining unpicked rikishi earned a win.
These are special wins scored by Maegashira rikishi over Yokozuna (kinboshi), Ozeki (ginboshi), and Sekiwake and Komusubi (Doboshi). Should one of your daily 4 achieve this feat, you will also earn the corresponding respective honor in the game. A kinboshi will
count 3 points, a ginboshi 2 and a doboshi 1 point towards the Shukun-sho standings. Wins through fusensho (win by default) are not eligible for this category.
Fours are days when your daily 4 ALL win their match, giving you a perfect score for that day. Each Four counts 1 point towards the Shukun-Sho standings.
There are no rules prohibiting picks on fusen matches. However, players who use a fusen match (i.e. picking a rikishi who receives a fusensho) will receive a
"Demerit", which does not affect a player's ability to score a win on that day, but will reduce the total win points score (the demerit cancels out the point earned through the fusensho) as well as the Shukun-sho score (where the Demerit
counts as minus 1 point). If a player scores a Four while using a fusensho, the Four will be counted as such, but the resulting Demerit cancels out the score for net zero points towards the Shukun-sho standings.
Awarded to the player who accumulates the highest Shukun-sho score, calculated as the sum total of Kinboshi (+3 points), Ginboshi (+2), Doboshi (+1), Fours (+1) and Demerits (-1) scored by each player.
Awarded to the player who accumulates the highest Kanto-sho score. Each
winning pick earns Kanto-sho points for a player, calculated as 1 divided by the square root of the number of selections the winning rikishi received on that day (rounded to two digits). Thus, being the only player to select a winning rikishi will net the maximum 1.00 points, being one of two players will net 0.71 points, being one of 25 players will net 0.20 points, etc.
Awarded to the player who accumulates the most overall win points, calculated as the number of winning rikishi selected across all 15 days, minus Demerits.
Please note that only players who earn a KACHI-KOSHI are eligible for sansho. However, should there be a basho with EXCEPTIONALLY low scoring, that requirement may be waived, entirely at the discretion of the S4 Kyokai. In addition, players ranked as Yokozuna or Ozeki are not eligible altogether.
In the event of a tie in any of the sansho standings, the tie-breaker scores will be used to determine a winner.
You can pick in advance should you anticipate otherwise having to miss a day or more of the basho. An alternative entry form is available for advance selections - since the torikumi for advance days is typically not known, you will enter your picks with a form reflecting the current banzuke. Picks made in advance can be changed again before the daily deadline. You can pick as many days in advance as you wish. The same rules of selection apply as in regular daily play.
Obviously you may not know the torikumi for days you pick in advance, so it is a bit of guesswork as you can not be sure who will be fighting who, but it still beats taking an automatic 0-4 for each day missed - with a little luck and the right strategy you may
well end up with a win, or more.
A new banzuke will be created based on the results of each basho. Player movements will generally mirror real sumo as much as possible, with kachi-koshi (8-7 or better) resulting in promotion and make-koshi (7-8 or worse) resulting in demotion.
However, due to the highly volatile nature of the Seki-Quadrumvirate scores - the average player's result has been anywhere between 5-10 and 9-6 in past tournaments - adjustments may have to be made from time to time. Normally, awarding slightly larger or smaller promotions/demotions will be sufficient, but in extreme cases, each active player may have one or more wins added to/subtracted from their Win-Loss record in order to achieve a workable distribution of records.
