World Rankings by Caleb Jeffries
Welcome to the 2023 Kendama Player World Rankings. This is a project that has been a firm goal of mine since the beginning of 2023 and I am pleased to finally present it to the community.
These rankings represent the players’ competitive performance throughout the year, and in no way represent the skill of players outside the scope of competition.
There was a lot of work that went into this list and I’d like to share as much as I can with the community about the process behind it, as I know you’ll all be curious. The first step was to reach out to 40+ trusted and respected members of the community to ask for their input on various aspects of competition. They ranked the importance of the following attributes of an event:
Amount of attendees
Prestige (how prestigious it is to win the title of the event)
Average skill of competitors
If the rules were standard or not (e.g. single/double elimination vs a game of ken)
If the event was online or in person
The difficulty of the trick list
I then, with the help of a few trusted advisors, assigned a value between 20 and 100 to each of these attributes for each event that happened throughout the year. For example, KWC has a prestige value of 100 as opposed to Tower Cup that has the minimum prestige value of 20. Each of these values were then proportioned according to the poll results that told me how important each value was, then a final “total event value” was calculated. All players who got top 8 at each event were awarded a piece of that total, with two exceptions. All those who got top 16 at KWC were awarded points, and there were a handful of events with no record of placings outside of top 3, in which case only top 3 were awarded points. Please note that in this case, top 3 were not awarded additional points just to ensure all points were distributed. When there is no record of top 8 players, the only difference is that places 4th-7th were not awarded any points. Additionally, there were bonus points awarded for winning any of the 5 “Major” competitions of the year. Those competitions are Battle at the Border, EKC, KWC, NAKO, and Catch and Flow. The bonus points were 20% of the total point value of the event.
My goal with this project is to push the kendama scene forward by invigorating players to improve themselves, encourage some standardization of competition, and hopefully legitimize our community in the eyes of outside sponsors and spectators. Not every player will be happy with how they are placed and I think that is a good thing. It will push players to go to more events with the goal of placing higher, and potentially encourage people around them to host more competitions. On the subject of standardization, by no means do I want to push kendama back into the strict, suffocating ruleset that the JKA had, but I do want to encourage the community to move toward some consistency regarding single vs double elimination and some details surrounding those formats. I believe that unique formats such as K.E.N. tournaments, dama bingo, random ladders, etc. still have a place within our community and should not be eliminated altogether. I only think rules and formats should be consistent where appropriate at the larger ‘Major’ events, and any other event that wishes to use double or single elimination formats. Lastly, I hope these rankings will provide some legitimization in the eyes of people outside the community. Myself and many others are extremely grateful for all the amazing outside sponsors kendama events have had over the years, but at times I feel like they are not quite enough to keep our community thriving. I hope that more companies will see these rankings, see the following our top players have, and feel more at ease with providing us with more monetary and logistical support in exchange for advertisement through our players, events, and livestreams.
Being the first year of this project, I am very aware that this process, therefore the rankings, aren’t 100% perfect. In the future, I plan on heavily refining the process in which these rankings were calculated. Some possible improvements are:
Provide separate rankings for freestyle and open division formats
Increase the size of the team that provides input. These team members will vote on fundamental changes to the process and provide number specific input for various ‘values.’
Adjust the percentages for points split. This may include giving a flat bonus to more than just 1st place at ‘Majors,’ and/or adjusting the amount of points 1st gets vs 2nd, 3rd, etc.
I can’t do all this alone! To all tournament organizers out there, please ensure that the entirety of your event’s bracket is documented and published, as well as the number of attendees. To those who attend events, please serve as a safeguard by taking pictures of the bracket! Documentation is key.
Thank you for reading this, and thank you for being part of such an incredible community. I look forward to growing this beautiful sport with all of you.
-Caleb ‘SlingShady’ Jeffries
Some anticipated/Frequently Asked Questions:
Q: Why wasn’t NAKO Performance included?
A: While yes, NAKO Performance was the secondary ‘competition’ of this year’s North American Kendama Open, its format was more akin to an edit contest than an actual live competition. The most important differentiator to NAKO Performance compared to every other competition this year is that the performances were not performed live. Competitors theoretically had hundreds of attempts to record their submission. Myself and the majority of advisors found the format to be entirely too subjective to be included in this mostly objective process. If this format continues into future years, we may shift our position on the matter and figure out a way to include this kind of competition in the rankings.
Q: Were ‘All Girls’ events included?
A: No. They were not included because every event this year that hosted a ‘girls only’ bracket also hosted a standard bracket where the girls were allowed to enter. Women were awarded points per their placings in the main bracket. In future years, we may introduce a separate rankings for women if that is something the community would like to see.
Q: Why wasn’t _______ Event Included?
A: This could have happened for one of two reasons. One, because the format was so outside of ‘typical’ competition that it simply did not feel right to include. Or two, because I missed it! This project was largely done by myself, Caleb, and I may have not been aware of an event. I own up to that mistake and am already more organized with collecting data and cataloging events for 2024. Remember, this is the first year of rankings. Despite this being year one, I’m quite pleased with the results and do not think an extra event or two would largely skew the current results from what they are. That is not to say that I think it is okay that some were missed, only that I don’t think it totally invalidates this year’s work.
Full rankings public record here.