Aronian breaks 2800

BY: BOBBY ANG

(As published in Chess Piece, BusinessWorld, 08 November 2010)

The World Chess Federation (FIDE) has released its November 2010 rating list.

November 2010 Rating List
World Top 20
(everybody is a GM)

1. Viswanathan Anand IND 2804
2. Magnus Carlsen NOR 2802
3. Levon Aronian ARM 2801
4. Vladimir Kramnik RUS 2791
5. Veselin Topalov BUL 2786
6. Alexander Grischuk RUS 2771
7. Vassily Ivanchuk UKR 2764
8. Shakhriyar Mamedyarov AZE 2763
9. Sergey Karjakin RUS 2760
10. Wang Yue CHN 2756
11. Ruslan Ponomariov UKR 2744
12. Teimour Radjabov AZE 2744
13. Pavel Eljanov UKR 2742
14. Boris Gelfand ISR 2741
15. Hikaru Nakamura USA 2741
16. Alexei Shirov ESP 2735
17. Vugar Gashimov AZE 2733
18. Wang Hao CHN 2727
19. Gata Kamsky USA 2726
20. Radoslaw Wojtaszek POL 2726

Country List in Top 20

Russia, Ukraine and Azerbaijan have three players each in the list. China and the USA have two each, while India, Norway, Bulgaria, Armenia, Spain, Israel and Poland have one each.

Russia is definitely losing its chess dominance -- they only have three players (Kramnik, Grischuk and Karjakin) left in the top 10 whereas they used to have 7-10 people. Morozevich, Bareev, Karpov, Svidler, Dreev, Rublevsky have dropped off the charts and none of the younger generation (Jakovenko, Alekseev, Andreikin, Vitiugov, Tomashevsky, etc.) have managed to step up and make their mark. Take note that Karjakin is a recent transferee and was still listed as a Ukrainian last year.

Most of the players listed above have been in and out of the Top 20 except for the new face GM Radoslaw Wojtaszek of Poland. This 23-year-old first came into public notice in 2008 when Anand chose him as one of his official seconds for the world championship match vs. Vladimir Kramnik, and again in 2010 against Veselin Topalov. This close contact with the elite in world chess has considerably solidified Wojtaszek’s chess, as his rating has steadily grown since. At the Chess Olympiad in Khanty Mansiysk, in the absence of Krasenkov, Wojtaszek played on the first board for Poland scoring six points in nine games.

In the top three Magnus Carlsen lost his top ranking to World Champion Viswanathan Anand, who hit 2804 -- his personal best. The Norwegian whiz kid lost 24 points from the Olympiad in Khanty Mansiysk and Bilbao. However, don’t count him out yet -- his crushing victory in Naning 2010, which was not taken up in the November rating list, adds 10 points to his rating and should boost him back to no. 1 soon.

The big news is that the Armenian GM Levon Aronian (IN PHOTO) has gained 18 points to move to place three and become the sixth player to cross the 2800 rating mark, joining Garry Kasparov, Vladimir Kramnik, Viswanathan Anand, Veselin Topalov and Magnus Carlsen.

Aronian, Levon (2783) -- Stevic, Hrvoje (2607) [D20]
26th European Club Cup Plovdiv BUL (4.2), 20.10.2010
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