Topalov catches Anand in FIDE rankings

The July 2005 FIDE Ratings

The perennial leader, on top of the ratings list for the 21st time, is Garry Kasparov. Due to his retirement from competitive chess his rating will not change until he is taken off the list. His highest Elo ever was 2851, achieved in July 1999 at the age of 36.

Vishy Anand, who has been the world's number two for quite a while now, gained three points in German League games to ward off being overtaken by Veselin Topalov, the winner of Linares and Sofia. The Bulgarian gaind ten points to just catch Anand at 2788.

The one of the biggest winners was Levon Aronian of Armenia, who gained 31 points in 30 games to enter the top ten for the first time ever, while Peter Svidler gained 13 in 26 games to jump from 10th place to 7th. Vladimir Kramnik lost nine points to drop from fifth to sixth, Michael Adams lost 18 points to drop out of the top-ten group.

Notable climbers in the top 100 were Sergey Tiviakov (+47), Mikhail Gurevich (+39), Artyom Timofeev (+39), Ivan Sokolov (+29). Seep descents are to be observed for Loek van Wely (-32) and Evgeny Bareev (-21), everyone else were more or less successful.

Addendum: Przemek Jahr of Pila in Poland made us a list of players who had at one time or another achieved a rating of 2700 or higher. If we call these players "Super-GMs" then there were, apparently, a total of just 35 in the game. The list shows the peak rating of each of these players.

 1  Kasparov, Gary            RUS  2851  1999.07
 2  Kramnik, Vladimir         RUS  2809  2002.01
 3  Anand, Viswanathan        IND  2797  2001.07
 4  Topalov, Veselin          BUL  2788  2005.07
 5  Fischer, Robert           USA  2785  1972.04
 6  Karpov, Anatoly           RUS  2780  1994.07
 7  Leko, Peter               HUN  2763  2005.04
 8  Morozevich, Alexander     RUS  2758  1999.07
 9  Adams, Michael            ENG  2755  2000.07
10  Ivanchuk, Vassily         UKR  2752  2005.07
11  Shirov, Alexei            ESP  2751  2000.01
12  Svidler, Peter            RUS  2747  2004.01
13  Kamsky, Gata              USA  2745  1996.07
14  Ponomariov, Ruslan        UKR  2743  2002.04
15  Bareev, Evgeny            RUS  2739  2003.10
16  Polgar, Judith            HUN  2735  2005.07
17  Grischuk, Alexander       RUS  2732  2003.07
18  Bacrot, Etienne           FRA  2731  2005.04
19  Aronian, Levon            ARM  2724  2005.07
20  Gelfand, Boris            ISR  2724  2005.07
21  Salov, Valery             RUS  2715  1995.01
22  Van Wely, Loek            NED  2714  2001.10
23  Short, Nigel              ENG  2712  2004.04
24  Beliavsky, Alexander      SLO  2710  1997.07
25  Kasimdzhanov, Rustam      UZB  2706  2001.10
26  Sokolov, Ivan             NED  2706  2004.01
27  Tal, Mikhail              LAT  2705  1980.01
28  Dreev, Alexey             RUS  2705  2003.10
29  Akopian, Vladimir         ARM  2705  2005.07
30  Krasenkow, Michal         POL  2702  2000.07
31  Smirin, Ilia              ISR  2702  2001.07
32  Khalifman, Alexander      RUS  2702  2001.10
33  Azmaiparashvili, Zurab    GEO  2702  2003.07
34  Malakhov, Vladimir        RUS  2700  2004.01
35  Bologan, Viktor           MDA  2700  2005.04

On the rest of this page we bring you the full FIDE rating list, the top juniors, top girls and top countries (by Elo average of the rated players). All lists were generated by FIDE and its webmaster Casto Abundo, who has implemented a very powerful database driven FIDE rating site which you can visit for more information.

Top 100 players

Top 50 women

In the women's section the two active Polgar sisters take first and second place – with the incredible Judit Polgar more than 150 points ahead of anyone of her gender, ever. Judit, you will notice, is in the top ten of all players, the only woman to break into the group of top two hundred (Susan is number 205 in the world). Maternity leave of over a year did not slow the youngest Polgar sister: in ten games since the previous list she has gained another three points.

The ex world champions Susan Polgar and Xie Jun both gained a lot with remarkable performances at the Chess Olympiad last year in Calviá (Spain). India's strongest female player, Koneru Humpy, picked up 23 points in 40 games to take fourth place. We welcome Sasha Kosteniuk to the clube of 2500+ players: the Russian gained 24 points in 15 games to occupy place five in the women's list.

Top twenty juniors

Here we have 18-year-old Teimour Radjabov from Baku in the lead, but all eyes are on 15-year-old Sergey Karjakin, who gained another ten points in 23 games to hold place seven at 2645 points. Sergey is the youngest player in the list by over two years. Second youngest is the reigning US champion Hikaru Nakamura, who is 17.

Top twenty girls

Humpy of course leads, but Ukraine talent Kateryna Lahno, who has just won the European Women's Championship, has gained 31 points in 22 games to take second place. 15-year-old Kateryna is the eighth highest ranked female player in the world today.