"The Pen:" Live NLHE Chat Thread
It's been about 9.5 years and 350K posts of epicness, but "It Lives, It Lives" can live no more. The OG LLSNL Chat Thre
That makes sense. I was trying to wrap my head around how someone like Ronaldo would accept playing in the minor leagues for a season if his team stunk.
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That makes sense. I was trying to wrap my head around how someone like Ronaldo would accept playing in the minor leagues for a season if his team stunk.
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not only would Ronaldo never have played for a Championship team, but he'd have left Man Utd or Real or whoever, if they didn't qualify for Champions League. Champions League is a huge and necessary recruitment and retention tool for the very best players
A good sports system cannot depend on the charity of millionaires of middle eastern oil monarchies. Americans understand that a sports competition is also a business. When Europeans built their leagues in the late 19th century/early 20th century, they viewed sports teams as amateur clubs that represent the local community. What they didn't foresee is how advancements in communication technology over time would help inject vast amounts of money through expanded markets and how that money would then be used to procure payers from a global talent pool. All of these developments help teams with the deepest pockets and as a rule, the teams with the deeper pockets are the ones based on the big cities of the continent.
As a result, right now, i can go look at Deloitte's survey of the 20th richest clubs in soccer and there's a 99% chance that the winners of the Champions League and the top 4-5 league will come from that list.
So, it sucks that American teams tank in order to get a better draft position, but at least that's done in the name of parity so that no team stays in the bottom for too long. European football is unfair, because no bottom team can realistically win big trophies as the system is currently constructed.
Sumo wrestling also has a system of promotion and relegation, and it's a completely meritocratic but brutal system.
Professional sumo has 6 grand tournaments a year, held every odd month, lasting 15 days each time. Before every tournament, the sumo association publishes the banzuke, a ranking system for every wrestler competing in sumo's professional pyramid. This ranking system pits wrestlers of similar ranking against each other, and decides what kind of salary or status each wrestler attains.
There are 6 divisions in sumo, and new recruits must start at the very bottom and earn their way to the top by getting winning records in each tournament. After every tournament, those who had winning records move up in rank, while those with losing records move down in rank. Win enough, and you will be promoted to a higher division. Only wrestlers from the top two divisions receive a salary, and only the top division gets major sponsorship money and real glory.
Within the top division there are additional rankings for the top few guys who are considered "title-holders." The very highest rank is Yokozuna, and this is the true "endboss" level of sumo. Yokozuna are considered gods of sumo and are the only wrestlers who cannot be demoted back down to a lower rank, although in practice Yokozuna are held to a very high standard and are expected to retire if they can no longer fight at a high level.
This all sounds fair, so why is it brutal? Well sumo is a full-contact combat sport, so injuries are frequent and constant. 400 pound men slamming into each other at full force is not good for the joints. But sumo wrestlers must fight every two months or they get demoted back down to a lower ranking. And absences due to injury have the same effect as losing, so wrestlers will often fight while injured in order to not lose rank. Only Yokozuna are allowed to rest up and heal without consequeces since they cannot be demoted, but reaching Yokozuna is extremely difficult.
This leads me to the story of Terunofuji Haruo, who IMO owns the best comeback story in sports. Terunofuji was born in Mongolia, like most of the best sumo wrestlers in the past 20 years. He entered professional sumo at 19, and worked his way from the lowest division to the top division in less than 3 years, and won his 1st top-division championship at 23. This earned him promotion to Ozeki, the second highest rank in sumo, only one step below Yokozuna. At the time there were 3 active Yokozuna, all of whom were Mongolian (Hakuho, Harumafuji, and Kakuryu).
Terunofuji looked destined to join his Mongolian compatriots at Yokozuna, but constant knee injuries caused his career to stall out, and after more than 3 years at Ozeki he eventually had to withdraw from 2 consecutive tournaments due to injury and lost his Ozeki status. Further injuries caused him to miss more tournaments and freefall down in rankings. After nearly 2 years of missing tournaments and getting surgery to repair his knees, Terunofuji found himself all the way down in the 5th division.
At 27 years old, Terunofuji essentially had to restart his career and fight his way back from the bottom to the top a second time. And in sumo you don't just get fast-tracked to the top because you previously held a high ranking, you have to earn every promotion on merit again. Which is just what Terunofuji did. He steamrolled everyone in the lower divisions and returned to the top division 18 months later. In his first tournament back in the top division, he won the whole thing, for his 2nd career top-division title.
His 3rd title followed a few months later, and at the age of 29, Terunofuji was promoted back to the rank of Ozeki, which he first held 6 years earlier. But he didn't stop there, as he immediately won his 4th title in his first tournament back at Ozeki. In the following tournament, he won his first 14 fights, setting up a legendary showdown vs Yokozuna Hakuho, the GOAT of sumo:
https://youtu.be/bGrebJt9rmU?si=k3VVdxZr...
Although Hakuho won that fight, and thus the tournament, Terunofuji had done enough, and a few days later he was officially promoted to Yokozuna, after basically rising from the ashes and having to re-start his career at 27. He won several more titles as Yokozuna, and retired earlier this year with 10 career top-division titles, making him one of the most successful sumo wrestlers ever. He is now the stable master at Isegahama stable and trains the next generation of sumo wrestlers.
boom! nice story
I used to love Sumo when I lived in London and there was a weekly show. The best at the time was Chiyonofuji. What was awesome about him was how much smaller he was than the behemoths he competed against, but he was so strong and so technical
hadn't realised til this very moment that he died comparatively young. (to normal humans...guessing most Sumo wrestlers die young given the various demands on their body)
Nice. My favorite was Harumafuji, who like Chiyonofuji was a smaller guy that dominated with his technique and athleticism.
I think Harumafuji vs Hakuho in 2012 is the greatest sumo match of all-time:
turning twenty six this week can you adopt me for insurance purposes? 
even if i did, it wouldnt matter, because you're turning twenty six
but what I can do, is be your unofficial big brother. 👍
not only would Ronaldo never have played for a Championship team, but he'd have left Man Utd or Real or whoever, if they didn't qualify for Champions League. Champions League is a huge and necessary recruitment and retention tool for the very best players
That's why we never hear about the country fubol club that climbed the ranks and won the Premier league. It's an interesting system this relegation, but does not change the reality that just a few blubs will do all of the winning.
Happy Veteran's Day, degens!
Looks like we'll been done with gov't shutdown soon. Fingers crossed, because it has been crushing me. With all the civilians furloughed, those of us military profs have been teaching triple.
Uncle Skip is currently freezing his behind off in GA and prepping for his glorious return to the office on Thursday.
I can only imagine how stale that temporary dungeon they have me in is going to smell. I am going to get up extra early that morning and hit the really good doughnut place for a treat for the staff as it will be out first day back and my birthday as well.
Uncle Skip is currently freezing his behind off in GA and prepping for his glorious return to the office on Thursday.
I can only imagine how stale that temporary dungeon they have me in is going to smell. I am going to get up extra early that morning and hit the really good doughnut place for a treat for the staff as it will be out first day back and my birthday as well.
Thank you for your service sir
Looks like it’s back to work for “BigSkip”. Tough break for a good kid, etc. etc.
