Friday, May 20, 2016

Edward Enborg Leads NHCQualify.com Player Ratings

Edward Enborg of Jacksonville, Florida is the highest-rated NHCQualify player, through the May 15 contest.

That's Enborg in front
Red Rock or Bust introduced its NHCQualify player ratings in early April, to great fanfare. (Actually I could hear a pin dropping above the audience reaction, but perhaps the silence was a stunned one because the methodology is so utterly brilliant.)

These player ratings differ from the NHC Leaderboard by counting misses as well as hits. It's all well and good to have the most NHC Tour points, or lead in the NHCQualify-specific "Cyberstars" competition, but the reality for those thingamabobs is that frequency of contest play is at least as important, if not more important, than quality of contest play. In other words, you need to play in a boatload of contests (and spend a boatload of $) to have any realistic chance at being a top dawg in the eyes of the NHC Tour.

The egalitarian NHCQualify player ratings level the playing field by recognizing quality of play only. As long as you've played a reasonable minimum number of entries (25% of all possible NHCQualify entries this year so far, or 9 after the May 15 contest), you're eligible.

Enborg, who was written about by the NHC marketing dude in 2014, has a player rating of 2.91, well ahead of the competition. He has produced 32 points over a relatively modest slate of 11 NHCQualify entries. Enborg finished 6th of 658 entries on January 30, earning 10 points (see methodology here); 3rd of 133 on May 8, good for 8 points; 6th of 199 on May 15, for 7 points; and 13th of 364 on Feb. 6, also 7 points.

That's pretty damn good for just 11 entries.

Here's the top 10:

Player (Points/Entries=Rating)
1. Edward Enborg, Jacksonville FL (32/11=2.91)
2. James Riley, Mansfield, MA (22/10=2.20)
3. Samuel DeCicco, Kingston NY (20/10=2.00)              
4. Bernard Reilly, Fair Haven NJ (17/9=1.89)
5. Dan Shugar, Los Angeles CA (22/12=1.83)
6. Michael Doheny, Bronxville, NY (16/9=1.78)
7. Craig Hom, San Francisco, CA (21/12=1.75)
8. Eliot Honaker, Lexington KY (26/15=1.73)
9. Robert Gianquitti, Lake Worth, FL (27/16=1.69)
10. Jonathon Kinchen, Austin, TX (20/13=1.54)

And the full rankings of the 132 people who have played at least 9 NHCQualify entries this year, and finished in the top 10% at least once:


Lastly, let's look at the 'Cyberstars' of the NHC. How do the top-ranked NHCQualify players, as per NTRA, stack up in the highly egalitarian NHCQualify Player Ratings?

The answer is, not great. Here are the top 10 Cyberstars:

Player (NHCQ/Cyberstars Points) (NHCQualify Player Ranking) 
1. Joseph Costello (9,649) (27th)
2. Kenneth McMahan (8,475) (28th)
3. George Chute (8,423) (11th)
4. Kevin Engelhard (7,891) (38th)
5. Geoffrey Schutt (7,815) (21st)
6. Eric Moomey (7,518) (26th)
7. Joe Pettit (7,283) (44th)
8. Robert Gianquitti (7,224) (9th)
9. Tanya Taylor (7,195) (41st)
10.Robert Gilbert (6,469) (61st)

Robert Gianquitti is the only Cyberstar with a top-10 NHCQualify Player Rating. George Chute is a strong 11th.

But the rest of the top 10 Cyberstars' player ratings are fair to middling, certainly nothing to write home about. The common denominator is that they have played a lot of entries -- 30+ for a number of them -- which elevates their standing in the Cyberstars competition.