A number of top tournaments, above all the Candidates Tournament, but also several opens and the final rounds of the Bundesliga, shook up the FIDE world rankings. The climber not only of the month, but of the past few weeks as a whole, is Javokhir Sindarov. The convincing winner of the Candidates Tournament, and therefore the challenger to world champion Gukesh Dommaraju, gained 31 points last month, catapulting himself to fifth place in the world rankings.

Anish Giri also showed improving form, jumping to sixth place in the world rankings with a gain of 14 points. These gains in position came at the expense of Vincent Keymer, who was overtaken and slipped two places. The German number one was active only in the Bundesliga final rounds for his club Baden-Baden, where he drew twice, costing him a few Elo points.

Among the losers in the top group of the world rankings are, above all, Hikaru Nakamura and Fabiano Caruana. The two US grandmasters lost 18 and 5 points respectively through their results in the Candidates Tournament, although this had no effect on their status as world numbers two and three.

Nakamura, who now plays hardly any classical tournaments, has fallen below the 2800 mark, making Magnus Carlsen currently the only player above 2800 Elo. The term "Elo deflation" is doing the rounds, and perhaps it has already reached the elite level. An Elo rating is not an absolute value like horsepower or kilograms, but a relative one, indicating how good a player is compared with other players. If many players with low Elo ratings enter the overall pool, then ratings gradually decline. That is the case, as there are many new players with low Elo ratings from the rising chess nations in Asia.

At the very top of the world rankings sits Magnus Carlsen, now more than 40 points clear of the rest and seemingly unaffected by any possible Elo deflation.

Matthias Bluebaum is the second-best German player and confirmed his rating at the Candidates Tournament. A small rating loss, however, cost him three places in the world rankings.

After Sindarov, Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus is the player with the biggest Elo gain. The young Turkish star gained 21 points with his match victory over veteran Veselin Topalov, thereby becoming the youngest player to cross the 2700 mark in history.

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Top 100 Women

Several of the world’s leading women were also in action in the Candidates. Vaishali Rameshbabu won the tournament and will challenge world champion Ju Wenjun. With a gain of 26 Elo points, she has now reached 13^th place in the women's world rankings.

The former Chinese leading quintet has now shrunk to a quartet. Tan Zhongyi had already fallen back to sixth place recently, but now she lost more than 18 points at the Candidates Tournament and with them another three places. Zhu Jiner was in contention for victory in the Women's Candidates Tournament for a while, but in the end also had to accept a loss of 8 points. She remains fourth in the world rankings, however, behind Hou Yifan, Lei Tingjie and Ju Wenjun.

Among the biggest winners on the May list are Anna Shukhman (+16 at the Menorca Open), Teodora Injac (+21 at the Reykjavik Open and the European Women's Championship) and Xiao Yiyi (+28 at the Chinese Women's Team Championship).

Top 100 Juniors

Reigning world champion Gukesh Dommaraju did not play last month and remains the world's leading under-20 player. Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus narrowed the gap with his large rating gain. Abhimanyu Mishra improved to sixth place on the list with a gain of 15 points. He earned those points at an open tournament in San Vicente del Raspeig in Spain.

Denis Lazavik, known as a leading player from many online rapid and blitz tournaments, is also slowly climbing the FIDE Elo list. He won the Karpov Tournament in Khanty-Mansiysk and gained 16 Elo points. Leon Mendonca also recorded a large gain, adding 18 points - he is now 12^th in the junior world rankings.

Leonardo Costa, the best young German player, lost 16 points at the Grenke Open and is now number 31 among the world's top 100 juniors. Christian Gloeckler remains on the way up. At the open tournament in San Vicente del Raspeig, he gained 10 Elo points and improved to 59^th place.

Top 100 Female Juniors

With her gain of 16 Elo points, Anna Shukhman took first place in the girls' junior world rankings, pushing Alua Nurman down into second place. Savitha Shri made a big leap with a gain of 23 Elo points. The Indian player is now ninth. Seventeen-year-old Iris Mou has climbed a long way up the list. She gained 88 Elo points and jumped from 77^th to 26^th place. Charis Peglau is the best young German player in 44^th place.

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