Li League Half Way Scorecard

 So the first half of the league - the Fischer time standard setup is done. We can now make some comments on how the teams appear to be doing using various metrics...

First up is the current order

1st Place Senko with 4 team wins and 8 individual wins
2nd Place Igo&Shogi with 3 team wins and 9 individual wins
3rd Place Wakagoi with 1 team win and 6 individual wins
4th Place Fukuoka with 1 team win and 4 individual wins
5th Place Nagoya with 1 team win and 4 individual wins

Individual Team Comments

Senko

Senko's plan seems quite simple. Ueno Asami would hopefully beat anyone and their co captain actually has a higher ranking than 2 of the other Captains so therefore the pair of them should allow them to win out - Ideally Asami or the 3rd player would get the opposing team Captain or Co-Captain allowing a team win. Out of all the teams this was the most imbalanced in terms of top talent versus bottom talent and this seems to be shown in the stats. Asami did indeed win all her matchups and Chiaki took three of hers. More surprising perhaps was the win by Izawa Akino that prevented an unexpected potential loss to Fukuoka. 

As far as matching goes (team game play perhaps) - though you have to recognise that there may be some back room dealing to try and ensure some of the star players matchup, the Captain and Co-Captain dominated their respective opponents by an impressive 958 ELO points whereas the 3rd player (shared equally between Tsuji Hana and Izawa Akino were 246 points lower than their opposition. It should be noted though that this was only the 3rd best matching ELO advantage which is a combination of Senkos going for elite talent for the 1st two slots and Asami herself being so much stronger than everyone else.

Star Player - for me it was Ueno Asami obviously

Igo & Shogi Channel

This team is structured with much the same apparent team style as Senko but here they have the 2nd and 5th best players so just behind Senko. The team approach should be broadly identical except when playing Senko when you would try and pair the 3rd player with Asami. Sadly for Igo they did not succeed with Senko but where very good against the rest of the League and were the only team to gain a clean sweep of wins in the entire competition.

The Captain and Co-Captain actually out ELO'd their opponents by 1007 points (which outdid Senko PLUS Rina faced Asami so would have lost points there) - which is a triumph of matchmaking or good luck.. Their 3rd player tended to be 122 points behind their respective opponents but here Igo lucked out with Moro Arisa winning two and the young Takayama Nonoka one, in both these cases saving team wins against Wakagoi and Fukuoka respectively.

You would have to say Xie Yimin was likely happy with a co-captains opposition (and in her team manager getting those matchups).

Star Player - Moro Arisa who has been strong in that 3rd slot (Takayama Nonoka also deserves something for her magnificent win really as well)

Wakagoi

Now Wakagoi went for a different approach to the first two. Broadly speaking the team strategy seems more one of getting the entire team higher ranked so even if you encounter one of the big beasts (Rina or Asami) you would still have an excellent chance of winning the other two games and lets be honest Ueno Risa is also a beast of a player herself.

Wakagoi though hit some appalling luck in that two of their players played heavily below par. Both Suzuki Ayumi and Okuda Aya only won 2 between them. I am a little surprised Kobayashi Izumi wasn't used more to be honest.

ELO matchups for the Captain and Co-Captain were a 3rd place (and drastically behind the leaders) only 132 up which might match the '1 of them should win approach' whereas the 3rd player tended to be 465 points up though surprisingly perhaps that was mainly Izumi (344 points over her opponent) so Aya was actually a closeish 121 higher than hers over her combined 3 matches.

Star Player - Ueno Risa - Hopefully one of the other three will bounce back strong in the second half as the team has so much potential...

Fukuoka

This team seems to have been badly hurt by their manager using their protection slot on Yanagihara Saki and letting Xie Yimin go. Though they somehow managed to get the amazing Hoshia Shiho as Captain the team in ELO terms is only slightly stronger than Nagoya.

Team strategy must have been hard due to this as they were in a hole ELO wise for all players. Respectively 384 down, 114 down, 88 down and 230 down. Now their were some bright lights with Shiho showing no fear and taking down no less than two opposing Captains so that 384 down did not cause her any nerves. Saki has had a bad competition but you must remember that her own ELO disadvantage in her games was a nasty 379 points down so she was not the favourite in any of them. Of the two backups they both fought well with Jon Bun'en proving herself the favourite for the automatic 3rd slot.

Star Player Hoshiai Shiho easily takes this, with Jo Bun'en getting an honourable mention.

Nagoya

Nagoya went for youth and potential and of all the teams has the worse ELO across the board (only having the base 2 players surrounding the two bottom Senko players but still low and the upper two heavily behind Senkos top 2). Matchup wise the coach actually did well with the Captain and Co-Captain actually out ELOing their opponents by 176 points. The last player was a rather horrific 688 behind (again the fact Suzukawa Natsuki only played once and happened to get the #5 Xie Yimin is the cause on its own of 507 of that and is acutally a sign of team success in taking out a high opponent).

Star Player The Co Captain gained most of the glory with 3 wins but she did beat players consistently worse than her (and lost the one game to a higher) so I give the award to Takao Mari whose win against the Wakagoi co-captain gave Nagoya their one win.

Now the current state of ELO (26th April 2026) is as follows. Please remember that ELO adjustments are for the player and not the league so a player who has done badly (Kato Chie) only dropped 3 points so must have done really well elsewhere whereas Xie and Risa did ok and have dropped badly.

1 Ueno Asami (Senko Captain) 3307  [+17]
2 Fujisawa Rina (Igo&Shogi Captain) 3213 [-15]
3 Ueno Risa (Wakagoi Captain) 3129 [-50]
4 Chiaki Mukai (Senko Co-Captain) 3055 [+24]
5 Xie Yimin (Igo&Shogi Co-Captain) 3042 [-31]
6 Kato Chie (Nagoya Captain) 3029 [-3]
7 Hoshiai Shiho (Fukuoka Captain) 3027 [+26]
8 Suzuki Ayumi (Wakagoi Co-Captain) 3017 [-21]
9 Nyu Eiko (Nagoya Co-Captain) 3008 [-15]
10 Kobayahi Izumi (Wakagoi) 2947 [+23]
11 Okuda Aya (Wakagoi) 2940 [-32]
12 Moro Arisa (Igo&Shogi) 2926 [-26]
13 Jo Bun'en (Fukuoka) 2906 [+57]
14 Yanagihara Saki (Fukuoka Co-Captain) 2896 [-51]
15 Takao Mari (Nagoya) 2871 [-24]
16 Tsuji Hana (Senko) 2802 [-13]
17 Takayama Nonoka (Igo&Shogi) 2755 [+6]
18 Izawa Akino (Senko) 2751 [+15]
19 Kibe Natsuki (Fukuoka) 2717 [-57]
20 Suzukawa Natsumi (Nagoya) 2535 [-7]