The big four

As had been expected last week, the Indian grandmaster and current world chess champion, Viswananthan Anand, has been knocked off the second spot on the latest international rating list which was released by the World Chess Federation earlier this week. 

His rating took a tumble from the 2810 rating points a year ago (the January 2011 rating list) to 2799 this January. Without a doubt, his last three performances in Bilbao, Moscow and London had greatly affected his ratings and he is now placed fourth in the world rankings.

The Norwegian grandmaster, Magnus Carlsen, now 21 years old, has retained his number one standing in the world. But more than that, over the past year, his rating has increased from 2814 points in January 2011 to 2835 points in the January 2012 list. 

Considering that the top players in the world are playing with one another exclusively, this is actually a gain of 21 points against top chess opposition.

More tellingly, Carlsen’s present rating of 2835 points is a good 30 points more than his nearest chess rival, Levon Aronian from Armenia. Over the past year, Aronian’s rating has not changed and remains at 2805 points. But because of Anand’s drop down the list, Aronian has been propelled from third to second-placed. 

Similarly, Vladimir Kramnik has been pushed up from fourth to third in the world ranking. But at least for this Russian grandmaster, he has seen his rating increase by 17 points from a year ago to 2801 in January 2012. This has been helped by an impressive display of chess technique at the London Chess Classic last month which he won comfortably.

So there you have it, the top four players in the world today are Carlsen, Aronian, Kramnik and Anand. 

Fifth in the world rankings is Azerbaijan’s Teimour Radjabov whose rating is 2773. His rating had also risen by 29 points over the past year. At this time last year, he was placed in 12th position among his peers.

The Bulgarian grandmaster, Veselin Topalov, remains sixth in the world today, unchanged from a year ago. However, five points have been shed by him and he stands today with 2770 rating points.

Sergey Karyakin is in seventh position with 2769 points, Vassily Ivanchuk is eighth with 2766 points, Alexander Morozevich is ninth with 2763 points and Vugar Gashimov rounds up the top ten with 2761 points.

Outside of this top list includes Alexander Grischuk who is also with 2761 points, Hikaru Nakamura with 2759 points, Peter Svidler with 2749 points, Boris Gelfand with 2739 points (placed 16th in the world today), Fabiano Caruana with 2736 points, China’s Wang Hao with 2733 points and Gata Kamsky with 2732 points.

There are 44 players whose ratings are at least 2700 points. Apart from Anand and Wang, the only two other Asian players in this exclusive 2700-plus club are Le Quang Liem from Vietnam with 2714 points and Krishnan Sasikiran from India with 2700 points. 

Sasikiran’s position in the world rankings has remained relatively unchanged: an increase of 10 rating points has seen his ranking rise from 45th a year ago to 44th position this January.

Le’s climb has been more phenomenal: a 50-point increase. Accordingly, his ranking has gone up from 79th in the world to 29th today.

Turning my sights to the top women players in the international rating list, I see that Judit Polgar is still the number one woman chess player in the world with 2710 rating points. Her grip on the women’s world ranking has been total. Nobody has been able to touch her for years. 

But in the next few years, we may be able to see someone else come closer to challenging Polgar’s status. If there is any woman chess player who can do it, it is likely to be that lass from China, Hou Yifan, who is the current women’s world champion.

In the January 2012 rating list, Hou is finally the number two in the world, having displaced the former number two, Humpy Koneru, who is now the world’s number three woman player.

But interestingly enough, Hou’s present rating is very little changed from a year ago. Then, she was at 2602 points while now, her gain is only three rating points to 2605. It is just that Humpy’s poor performances lately have lost the Indian player some 18 points. She had been most affected by her terrible display at the women’s world championship match in November. 

Finally, I should also mention that China’s Ju Wenjun who was here in Kuala Lumpur playing in last year’s Malaysia open championship is now ranked as the sixth best woman chess player in the world. Over the past year, she had risen from 13th position.