USCL Ratings and Power Rankings: Week 4 (2009)

Another week in the USCL, and another set of power rankings and ratings.

As a note of clarification, I took a good long hard look at how I was creating the power rankings. In the previous system, I was using the following ratios to calculate power ranking -- 43% team record, 43% opponents' records, 14% opponents' opponents' records. The more I dwelled on it, and the more I studied the rankings it was giving me, the more I came to realize that there was too much stress on the strength-of-schedule, and too little on the actual record achieved; a win is a win, after all, regardless of who the opponent is.

Therefore, in this slightly altered formula of power rankings, the ratios are now 55% team record, 35% opponents' records, and 10% opponents' opponents' records. I don't plan to change it again this year... famous last words.

Given that, here are the rankings for post-week 4 in the USCL's 2009 season.

1 -	San Francisco	1.000
2 -	New Jersey	0.992
3 -	Seattle	0.938
4 -	Miami	0.850
5 -	Boston	0.823
6 -	New York	0.817
7 -	Tennessee	0.736
8 -	Dallas	0.729
9 -	Arizona	0.721
10 -	Baltimore	0.657
11 -	Philadelphia	0.656
12 -	Chicago	0.640
13 -	Queens	0.629
14 -	Carolina	0.493

Some interesting observations. New York is several places above Baltimore, even though New York's record is 1.5-2.5, and Baltimore's record is 2.5-1.5. This is highly due to the strength of schedule. New York has played New Jersey twice and Seattle once -- three weeks of tough opposition, while Baltimore has played lower scoring teams.

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The ratings are presented below. Remember, to be included on the list, a player must have played three lifetime games in the USCL, as well as having played in the 2009 season.

Rank	Rating	Name
1	2655	Jaan Ehlvest
2	2638	Hikaru Nakamura
3	2621	Julio Becerra
4	2604	Sergey Erenburg
5	2600	Boris Gulko
6	2588	Larry Christiansen
7	2576	Dean Ippolito
8	2575	Joel Benjamin
9	2574	Marko Zivanic
10	2571	Jacek Stopa
11	2554	Gregory Serper
12	2546	Alex Shabalov
13	2545	Josh Friedel
14	2543	Giorgi Kacheishvili
15	2539	Yuri Lapshun
16	2539	Eugene Perelshteyn
17	2533	Alejandro Ramirez
18	2532	Pascal Charbonneau
19	2529	Alex Lenderman
20	2515	Marc Esserman
21	2505	Eli Vovsha
22	2505	Bruci Lopez
23	2492	Rogelio Barcenilla
24	2491	Thomas Bartell
25	2490	Levon Altounian
26	2478	Alex Stripunsky
27	2478	Jesse Kraai
28	2474	Sam Shankland
29	2459	Jorge Sammour-Hasbun
30	2459	Dmitry Schneider
31	2458	Daniel Ludwig
32	2449	Denis Shmelov
33	2449	Sergey Kudrin
34	2446	Slava Mikhailuk
35	2438	Jan van de Mortel
36	2435	Angelo Young
37	2435	Larry Kaufman
38	2434	David Pruess
39	2433	Oleg Zaikov
40	2431	Tegshsuren Enkhbat
41	2429	Mackenzie Molner
42	2419	Florin Felecan
43	2415	John Bartholomew
44	2414	Mehmed Pasalic
45	2414	Blas Lugo
46	2408	Mark Ginsburg
47	2407	Nikola Mitkov
48	2406	Jonathan Schroer
49	2405	John Donaldson
50	2402	Robby Adamson
51	2399	Keaton Kiewra
52	2391	Jay Bonin
53	2379	Shinsaku Uesugi
54	2375	Andrei Zaremba
55	2374	Vadim Martirosov
56	2374	Eric Rodriguez
57	2366	Yian Liou
58	2366	Ron Simpson
59	2364	Ron Burnett
60	2354	Victor Shen
61	2352	Bryan Smith
62	2351	Peter Bereolos
63	2349	Aviv Friedman
64	2344	Michael Lee
65	2344	Yaacov Norowitz
66	2340	Matthew Herman
67	2331	John Bick
68	2329	Bayaraa Zorigt
69	2315	Eric Tangborn
70	2311	Ilya Krasik
71	2306	Todd Andrews
72	2296	Jon Burgess
73	2294	Ray Kaufman
74	2269	Craig Jones
75	2261	Nelson Lopez
76	2257	Josh Sinanan
77	2256	Tsagaan Battsetseg
78	2250	Danny Rensch
79	2227	Alejandro Moreno Roman
80	2217	Leo Martinez
81	2207	Elizabeth Vicary