Rankings and Player Hierarchy

I can not for the life of me remember the names of the ranks, English or Japanese. Can I propose an easy-to-remember substitute?

Green ranks - 1, 2, 3. 1st Green is one above 10-dan (Tsuwamono), 2nd Green two above 10-dan, and 3rd Green three above 10-dan. Green ranks are probably the minimum for players to be considered competitive against the best players.

Gold ranks - 1, 2, 3. Dobi Akira is 1st Gold, Makoto is 2nd Gold, Yanaga Pai is 3rd Gold. For me, any player with a Gold rank or better can already be considered elite. These guys are good.

Black ranks - 1, 2, 3. Edo is 1st Black, Chibita is 2nd black, and Fudo is 3rd Black. Is Fudo the highest ranked player? I haven't seen anyone else with 3rd Black. Needless to say, any player with a Black rank can be considered part of the pantheon of VF.

Small Emperor, or Shou Haoh. Dagina has a Shou Haoh rank, but it's "fake." I.e. he got it as part of a joke.

Emperor, or Haoh. The Sarah player I creamed in Japan. No Haoh rank out there is earned, I think 3rd Black is the highest rank thus far.

There are also a ton of special ranks, some for tournaments wins and others for special prizes. I haven't bothered to remember these.

I actually believe the strongest indicator of strength is your rank once in the Green and above. Ryan Hart, for example, for all his success in Japan cannot get past 3rd Green and sometimes slip down to the Dan ranks. The best player in Hong Kong is only 3rd Green. The reason is that at that level, there are only a handful of players you can play against to advance. For Edo to advance to 1st Black, that means he had to defeat opponents on the caliber of Yanaga, Seningiri, etc. consecutively. No easy feat.

In any case, what's interesting is that in OH4, I only saw one character who didn't have a Gold or better rank, Sugoroku Aoi at 2nd Green. Except Sugoroku, arguably every single one of those players had the credentials to win the tournament! Who said luck is a factor in VF?

 

If thats the case then Sugoroku Star done really well considering, more credit to him, especially with that win over Homestay /versus/images/graemlins/cool.gif

 

Sometimes I see Hakushon Lau and SHU dropping all the way to 9-dan. /versus/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

 

Ranking fluctuates very easily as far as I heard. When Haijin was using his 10th dan card for the OTE3, he'd gotten demoted by 5 ranks the night before the tournament to have that 10th dan card. Today's Toshou can be tomorrow's OJa. Therefore, it's kinda pointless to compare players only by seeing their rankings as you could see the same player with much higher/lower ranking in few days.

Kyasao once told me in FL that ranking is deceaving and so is winning percentage.

-maddy-

 

Ranks probably don't get discussed enough online to a merit an "official naming" or anything...and goodness, I'm probably the last guy on this board who'd insist on a standard lexicon. I think it's more that it's a system that I found useful and easy to remember, and others may find it so as well.

As for the consistency of rankings...I think consistency is another indicator of strength. Have you ever seen Chibita fall to a Green rank? That's why he's so good. Those who fall up and down are probably not as consistently strong as those who are able to maintain a narrow range in ranks.

I do think there are other factors that make a rank misleading. There are cheaters, who didn't earn their rank. And there are location differences, where a small town would not be as strong as Tokyo, and even within Tokyo, a neighborhood arcade may not be as strong as Shibuya High Tech Land.

Still, I do think rankings and tournament performances are the best indicators of a player's strength.

 

[ QUOTE ]
ice-9 said:

Have you ever seen Chibita fall to a Green rank? That's why he's so good.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree. In fact, I've only heard twice about his demotions so far. One was the recent battle against Fudo, and the other one was against Homestay back in the day in the Evo era. It happens so rarely that when it happens it becomes a news.

BTW, Chibita had stayed at the 2nd Black rank "alone"
for more than 3 monthes as nobody else could promote to the same rank for that span. He was at one point +9 at the rank before losing to Fudo. Interesting rivalry.