Anand tops July 1st 2008 FIDE ratings, Carlsen sixth

Top 100 Players July 2008

World Champion Viswanathan Anand lost five points in the two rated games he played since the April 2008 list, dropping from 2803 to 2798, but staying ten points ahead of the second ranked player. That is now Alexander Morozevich, who gained 14 points from 20 games, catching up with Vladimir Kramnik, who remains unchanged at 2788. Since Morozevich had more games – 20 vs 0 in the rating period – he is listed in second place.

Another up-and-comer is roller coaster Vassily Ivanchuk, who gained 41 points (in words: forty would you believe it one) from 25 games to jump from place 11 to place 4, four points ahead of number five, Veselin Topalov, who gained ten points from ten games.

Next in line is Magnus Carlsen, who just turned 17½ and, as everyone knows, is de facto number two in the world. Magnus won the Aerosvit tournament in Foros with a stunning 2877 performance, but the tournament ended four days after a deadline set by FIDE for submission of tournaments for the rating list (the 15th of the previous month). So Magnus has landed on place six, two points behind Topalov. Fortunately we now have a "Live List" which give accurate, up-to-the-minute ratings for players over 2700. This will be given after the "official" FIDE rating list below.

Before the email and feedback flood gates open we would like to tell you that we were in constant correspondence with the ratings officers and administrators of FIDE. The former were in favour of rating Foros, which basically involved hitting the Return key. In fact one rating officer briefly announced that, of course, Foros would be rated, and Magnus Carlsen would be number two in the world. However, just hours later he was called to order by the FIDE legal department, which drew attention to the fact that FIDE had taken a firm decision at the Executive Board meeting during the 78th FIDE Congress, 14-16 November, 2007, in Antalya, Turkey:

Actually FIDE has in the past made multiple exceptions for key tournament, e.g. it included Linares in the April lists in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006, in spite of these events having finished ten or more days after the deadline (at the time one month before the list appeared). The 2007 Asian Cities Chess Championship in Tehran was included, although it was held entirely after the deadline had elapsed, and at least three other events that missed the deadline were used to compile the April 2007 list. And looking back: the 15th Asian Games tournament was rated for the January 2007 list, although it ended 14 days after the submission deadline had expired.

On April 1st 2007 a brief attempt was made to omit Morelia/Linares and deny Anand his number one slot. 24 hours later FIDE relented – possibly in face of a potential storm by 1.1 billion angry fans – and rated Linares 2007, even though it ended ten days after the submission deadline.

It is possible that this will happen again, that FIDE will replace the current list. The overriding consideration is that the accuracy of the ratings and their up-to-dateness should take precedence over burocratic guidelines. This applies especially in cases where chess history is in the making. Judging from the email we have received in the past weeks the pressure from chess fans and the media will be enormous.

À propos media: we have already encountered numerous reports which have assumed that Carlsen would be in the number two slot on July 1st. For instance, in his Telegraph column on June 30 Malcolm Pein writes:

The Los Angeles Times said the following in a column by IM Jack Peters on June 29:

On the same day the Indian news portal DNA wrote:

Finally tournament organisers have already use the rating list that never was to announce their events. For instance the press release for the 71st Corus Super-GM in Wijk aan Zee (January 16th to February 1st 2009), sent out last week, says:

All of the above will now be forced to publish retractions. It will be interesting to see how FIDE weathers this one. As mentioned above we will bring you the live rating list with current ratings, accurate to tenths of an Elo point, at the end of the following official "top 100" rating list by FIDE.

FIDE July 2008 Rating List

Live Top List (players over 2700)

Compiled by By Hans Arild Runde

The games and tournaments rated after April 2008 for the above list were:

Apart from the above tournaments rounds one and two of the running Dortmund event have also been included. The list was published on Sunday, June 29th, at 19:38 CEST, minutes after the game Leko-Ivanchuk had finished. You can track the daily rating changes of the player on the Live Top List web site.

Top 53 Women July 2008

This list is much the same as the previous one, with Judit Polgar (two point up) in the clear lead ahead of Koneru Humpy, who in turn is way ahead of everyone else. One noteworths change is the reentry of double Women's World Champion (1991-1996 and 1999-2001) Xie Jun in the list. Xie is one slot above China's wonder girl Hou Yifan, who at 14 is China's youngest ever Women's National Champion.

Top 20 Juniors July 2008

Here Magnus Øen Carlsen, 17½ years old, reigns supreme, with or without Foros. He is being pursued by his arch rival, Sergey Karjakin of Ukraine, ten months his senior and now 48 point behind. Sergey won international renown when in 2002 he earned his final grandmaster norm at the age of 12 years and seven months, setting an all-time record for child prodigies. We are also watching the progress of Fabiano Caruana, who has moved up two notches to place five. Fabiano is 15 and has been doing fabulously (get the pun?) in recent events.

Top 20 Girls July 2008

Here Hou Yifan, the chess marvel, leads by fifty points, ahead of Katya Lahno, who has switched places with Anna Muzychuk, with India's Harika Dronavalli in fourth place.

Lists and data by courtesy of FIDE