
A Sumo Matchup Centuries in the Making - luu
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-sumo-matchup-centuries-in-the-making/
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bravefoot
It's interesting to see this analysis a year later. The article posits that
possibly "Hakuho sees his skills slipping and is resorting to dirty tactics in
a last-ditch effort to stay on top of a sport" and since then Hakuho has been
reprimanded for other actions in the ring, faced serious injury, and gone into
the longest losing streak since becoming a Yokozuna. If this turns out to be
the end of Hakuho's career, it's interesting that this article picked out a
possible beginning of the fall

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jerrycruncher
Indeed. I think the most recent tournament was very telling about Hakuho's
future: he was clearly invested in winning, but he's just not as dominant as
he used to be. His loss on day 15 really underscored that.

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jasode
I found it odd that a long article from a _statistics_ website like 538 didn't
mention the statistical anomalies that suggested match fixing in sumo
wrestling. I learned about that from the Freakonomics book.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Match-
fixing_in_professional_s...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Match-
fixing_in_professional_sumo)

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Avenger42
Sure, you can write that story too, but this author seems more interested in
across-the-eras comparison stories, like the one he linked comparing Peyton
Manning to other great quarterbacks.

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riffraff
I think OP's point was that you should be accounting for match fixing when
comparing across the eras.

If there is incentive in modern times to have some results and the incentive
wasn't there before then it should be accounted for.

I have no clue about american football, but presumably this would be like
accounting for differences in ball materials, regulations etc.

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sidlls
Why is that move "beneath the dignity" of a wrestler? Seems like a great
counter to me.

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jerrycruncher
The move is not described very well in the article. It's not really a
countermove per se (because the time to impact is maybe 2 or 3/10ths of a
second), but something that the wrestler decided to do before the match began.
Before the initial charge, the two are crouched a few feet apart from each
other, and instead of charging forward, one wrestler jumps to the side rather
than engage the opponent.

I can't immediately think of any corollaries in other sports, but it'd be a
bit like a baseball batter jumping into the middle of the plate in order to
get hit so that he can 'win' against the pitcher.

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failrate
I think a better comparison would be to point to the grandstands, signaling a
home run, but then bunting.

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jerrycruncher
That is a better comparison, yes. Thanks!

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teawithcarl
Regreyably, Chiyonofuji - the dominate Yokozuna of the 1990's decade (a
lightwieght, strong, judo-esque wrestler and a sublime Japanese gentleman) is
not included in the article.

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Old_Thrashbarg
No! I have an extremely negative association with 538 (not their fault). I
don't want to see that logo for at least another year.

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aeze
Care to elaborate?

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InitialLastName
Their model of the 2016 US Presidential election reflected the same polling
error that all the other models showed. They gave Trump a 30% chance of
winning, along with some commentary about ways that systemic error could
easily swing things in his direction. Trump then won the election with results
well-within their error margins, but that wasn't enough for some people.

It's hard for some members of our society to acknowledge that 30%-chance
events happen on occasion, so 538 takes the fall.

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oh_sigh
Their election night coverage was one of better ones, but in the lead up to
the election, Nate Silver got _a lot_ wrong about Trump. He even had to write
a mea culpa about it. Perhaps that is what OP is talking about?

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tacomonstrous
>but in the lead up to the election, Nate Silver got a lot wrong about Trump.
He even had to write a mea culpa about it.

That was for the Republican primary.

