3/1/2019 – FIDE's March ratings reflect changes from the Gibraltar Masters, the Cairns Cup and Champions Showdown in St. Louis. Vladislav Artemiev took a big step up the classical list after his Gibraltar win. Valentina Gunina can point to her fine performance in the USA to justify her re-entrance into the top 10 among women. And Fabiano Caruana showed that he really has worked on his rapid chess. | Photo: Lennart Ootes
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Rock me Artemiev
The influence of live ratings was particularly in evidence last month as the prevailing FIDE rating list was out of date almost the moment it was published. It's hard to imagine that the official ratings were once published just twice a year. Now even monthly lists are sometimes not enough. Vladislav Artemiev surged 27 points from just his 10 games in the Gibraltar Masters and is now knocking on the door of the top 20.
More of the top women were active overall thanks to the generosity of the Sinquefield couple in St. Louis and the inaugural Cairns Cup.
Artemiev scored big and Tan Zhongyi (left) took the women's prize | Photo: John Saunders
Top 100 players
The official top 100 list this month is mainly impacted by the rating of the Gibraltar Masters, which we touched on already in our February ratings update, but which was not officially rated until now. Of the top players, only a handful have been active in the month of February. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Wesley So, Yu Yangyi, Levon Aronian and Hikaru Nakamura all lost a few points during their stay beside "the rock" but very little has changed in the world rankings, aside from Artemiev's breakthrough.
Forty-two of the top 100 players are now rated over 2700. To enter the Top 100 you need an Elo rating of 2655. That figure has remained surprisingly stable in recent years — in March of 2017 it was 2659.
By the way, you can click on any name to reach that player's ChessBase PlayerBase page, complete with rating graphs and all his or her latest games!
Ivan Saric turned in a good performance in Gibraltar and is now over 2700 for the first time in his career.
Boris Gelfand is at a new low this century and is in danger of dropping out of the top 100. He was a fixture of the world elite from the early 1990s to 2016. In recent years he has mentored World Rapid Champion Daniil Dubov.
Comparison of the players old and new world rank after rating changes >/= 10 Elo points
In case you missed it earlier this week, be sure to check out the "history of top chess players over time" and this newly published video:
Top 100 Women
Mariya Muzychuk has leapfrogged her sister, though the intrepid sibling duo is separated by just 5 points. After the Cairns Cup, Alexandra Kosteniuk has opened up a 30-point margin at number 7 between herself and Valentina Gunina, who is solidly back over 2500 after her success in St. Louis. They each made a double-digit gains, while Alexandra Goryachkina ran into a rough patch and shed 14 points.
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The Champions Showdown put ten top players to the test in rapid and blitz last month. The big winners from a ratings standpoint were Fabiano Caruana, who jumped 41 points to number 3 in the world, right behind Hikaru Nakamura, and Veselin Topalov, who enters the rapid top 10 after picking up 64 points in the USA.
Fabiano Caruana gave Harikrishna quite the shellacking in rapid | Photo: Austin Fuller / Saint Louis Chess Club
Top 100 Blitz
Hikaru Nakamura just barely clawed back the number 2 spot on the world blitz rankings from Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, who was inactive. Along with Magnus Carlsen, the trio is clearly a cut above the rest in this format.
Scarcely any world champion has managed to captivate chess lovers to the extent Carlsen has. The enormously talented Norwegian hasn't been systematically trained within the structures of a major chess-playing nation such as Russia, the Ukraine or China.
Nakamura enjoys watching blitz too | Photo: Lennart Ootes
Top 100 Juniors
Alireza Firouzja flew up 39 points to number 4 on the top juniors list, thanks to his wins in the Iranian Championship and the 3rd International Stars Cup, also in Iran. He and Parham Maghsoodloo are a big reason why we recently published a story on the Iranian chess boom.
Macauley PetersonMacauley served as the Editor in Chief of ChessBase News from July 2017 to March 2020. He is the producer of The Full English Breakfast chess podcast, and was an Associate Producer of the 2016 feature documentary, Magnus.
@daftarche - I've added Firouzja and Romain Edouard to the "climbers and descenders" list. Both were omitted inadvertently because of the way FIDE presents this table. Newly added members of the top 100 don't display a rating change. We'll watch out for this more carefully in the future.
@IntensityInsanity - Fair point. It's a bit subjective (what constitutes "fixture" and "elite") but I've revised the characterisation.
IntensityInsanity 3/3/2019 06:42
Great article, but may I ask, why Gelfand’s membership at the elite level is described being from 2005-2016. This is true, but this time frame is a subset of his elite years. I think his breakout year was around 1990, I remember him having a 2680 rating which back then was good for #3 in the world. I remember his first Megahit was winning the interzonal or World Cup qualifier, in Palma de Mallorca. I think Tony Miles and Gata Kamsky famously shared 2nd in that tournament.
Anyway, point being: Gelfand’s ‘regular appearance’ in top 10 goes from 1990-2016. And not just too 10, but consistent invitations and good performances in elite events.
daftarche 3/2/2019 10:10
Why didn't you mention Firouzja's name in Top climbers and descenders? he gained 39 points to be in top 100.
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