Best of 2015: Best player

To vote you need to login with your ChessBase Account. The final result of the vote will be revealed in a week but during the next days more polls about various aspects of chess will follow. However, now it's your turn to vote for the "Player of the Year 2015". Here are the candidates:

Magnus Carlsen: the World Champion from Norway is the world's number 1
and winner of the Grand Chess Tour 2015. He had a very bumpy start to the
year, with a bad result in Norway, losing a lot of Elo at one point, but has finished
on a high note with wins in London and Qatar.

Vladimir Kramnik: The Russian climbed back to the top and in January will be
number 2 on the world ranking list. He played some superb chess this year but
his result at the European Club in Reykjavik stands out: he played on first board,
scored 4.5/5, achieved an Elo-performance of 3102, and won gold with his club Siberia.

Anish Giri: the Dutchman almost surpassed the 2800 barrier, is currently number 3 in the world,
and was the only player not to lose a single game during the Grand Chess Tour 2015.

Levon Aronian: the Armenian is currently number 4 in the world and in 2015
had his ups (winning the Sinquefield Cup) and downs (Norway Chess).

Hikaru Nakamura: the US-American is currently number 5 in the world. In 2015 he won the
Millionaire Chess Open (and $100.000 prize-money), the US Championship, the Zurich International
 and the strong open in Gibraltar. The London Chess Classic was the only supertournament in which he
did not finish with a plus score this year. In October he was the world no. 2, the highest ranked US
player since Bobby Fischer.

Fabiano Caruana is currently number 6 in the world. In 2015 he won the
FIDE Grand Prix circuit which qualified him for the Candidates Tournament
in 2016. However, he also lost 34 Elo-points in the course of the year.

Maxime Vachier-Lagrave: The French player is currently number 7 in the world. He started
the year badly in Khanty-Mansiysk, but then won in Biel and tied for first at the London Chess Classic.

Viswanathan Anand: the Indian chess legend is currently number 8 in
the world. In 2015 he had three good results, winning the classical part
of Zurich, as well as good results in the Gashimov Memorial and Norway
Chess. In August he even reclaimed the world no.2 spot for two months

Veselin Topalov: the Bulgarian is currently the world's number 9. In 2015
he once was number 2 in the world and won the Norway Chess tournament,
but later in the year dropped a lot of Elo-points.

Wesley So is currently number 10 in the world. He played a lot in 2015 and
had ups and downs, but he qualified for the 2016 Grand Chess Tour by rating.

Sergey Karjakin: the Russian is currently number 11 in world. In 2015 he 
won the World Cup and qualified for the Candidates in 2016.

Ding Liren: the Chinese number 1 is currently number 12 in the world,
and for some time also was among the world's top ten in 2015.

Pavel Eljanov: the Ukrainian is current number 13 in the world and had an amazing World Cup
where he won seven games in a row. In 2015 he won no less than 33 Elo-points.

Alexander Grischuk: the Russian is currently number 15 in the world. He
became World Blitz Champion in October but also lost 58 Elo-points in 2015.

Peter Svidler: the Russian is currently number 17 in the world, and in 2015
finished second in the World Cup to qualify for the Candidates 2016.

Wei Yi: the Chinese is currently number 39 in the world and in 2015 became
the youngest player to break 2700. His rating has had some ups and downs, 
though he showed that he can compete on the highest level by winning
the B-tournament in Wijk aan Zee 2015 and by reaching the semifinals
of the World Cup.

Photos by Amruta Mokal and Pascal Simon

Current ELO standings: 2700chess.com