The world chess federation FIDE released its October rating list this morning. Former FIDE World Champion Veselin Topalov (see photo) has taken over the top spot at 2791, just a nose ahead of Alexander Morozevich, Vassily Ivanchuk and Magnus Carlsen. A whopping 32 Grandmasters have achieved "super GM" status with a rating above 2700.There has been plenty of action over the past three months. Perhaps the biggest surprise is that reigning World Champion Viswanathan Anand sits in 5th place and former champion Vladimir Kramnik occupies the 6th place. Amazingly, Anand had been rated in the top three continuously for the past 11 years! Nonetheless, Anand is just 8 rating points out of first and even Kramnik is merely 19 points away. Look further down the rating list for well established names such as Peter Svidler, Alexei Shirov and Alexander Grischuk, all who barely made the top 20 (including ties).
- Veselin Topalov, 2791, Bulgaria
- Alexander Morozevich, 2787, Russia
- Vassily Ivanchuk, 2786, Ukraine
- Magnus Carlsen, 2786, Norway
- Viswanathan Anand, 2783, India
- Vladimir Kramnik, 2772, Russia
- Levon Aronian, 2757, Armenia
- Teimour Radjabov, 2751, Azerbaijan
- Peter Leko, 2747, Hungary
- Dmitry Jakovenko, 2737, Russia
- Yue Wang, 2736, China
- Michael Adams, 2734, England
- Sergei Movsesian, 2732, Slovakia
- Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, 2731, Azerbaijan
- Sergey Karjakin, 2730, Ukraine
- Gata Kamsky, 2729, USA
- Peter Svidler, 2727, Russia
- Alexei Shirov, 2726, Spain
- Pavel Eljanov, 2720, Ukraine
- Boris Gelfand, 2719, Israel
- Lenier Dominguez, 2719, Cuba
- Ruslan Ponomariov, 2719, Ukraine
- Alexander Grischuk, 2719, Russia
We can contrast that to the United States, which has only one player in the top 20 (Gata Kamsky) and then one more in the top 80! The lone bright spot remains Hikaru Nakamura, whose 2704 rating places him at exactly #30. Can he go higher?
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