Magnus Carlsen Tops FIDE January Rating List With 42-Point Gap

Without playing a game, GM Magnus Carlsen (2862) saw his lead in the world rankings increase to 42 Elo points. GM Fabiano Caruana lost nine points but is still the world #2.

After winning his match with Vishy Anand in November in Sochi, Magnus Carlsen took some rest. Nonetheless his rating, 2862, is impressive.

In a recent interview Anand left no doubt about who he thinks is the best player in the world:

“Right now, he is just astounding. I mean he is not just difficult for me. There is no player in the world who can claim to dominate Carlsen and that is a very real assessment. He wins against everyone. So it isn't just me. [...]

The record is unbelievable. He has been at over 2860 plus ELO [sic] rating points for a long time now and he has maintained that rating with ease. It is the kind of rating that many people will never achieve and even in this lot, it is only Caruana who is close. So is he the most formidable player ever? That is hard to answer but in the current generation no one comes close.”

We only have to wait nine days to see the world number one behind the chess board again. After skipping a year, Carlsen will be back in Wijk aan Zee. His main rivals will be GM Fabiano Caruana, GM Levon Aronian, GM Anish Giri, GM Wesley So and GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave.

Caruana made the headlines in September when he scored his amazing 7-game winning streak at the Sinquefield Cup. His rating jumped from 2801 to 2844, but in subsequent lists he lost 24 points. Will he manage to stop that trend at Tata?

It's a pity that we won't see world number three GM Alexander Grischuk in Wijk aan Zee. The Russian number one, who didn't play classical games in December, is only 10 points behind Caruana. Like Grischuk, GM Veselin Topalov wasn't active and remains the world number four.

GM Viswanathan Anand and GM Levon Aronian switched places; the Indian won 3.9 rating points thanks to his victory in London while there were still a few games of Aronian from his match with GM Hikaru Nakamura in November that weren't calculated yet.

GM Anish Giri was number seven in October and November but dropped back to number 10 in December. In the new year we find the young Dutch GM back at seven after an impressive rating gain of 16.1 points earned in Qatar and London.

In 12 months, Giri, who is now rated 2784, won exactly 50 Elo points. 

GM Vladimir Kramnik was briefly out of the top 10 at the end of 2014 but is firmly back again, rated 2783, one point behind Giri. He also got his points (+13.7) from Qatar and London.

GM Hikaru Nakamura won a modest 2.1 rating points in this period but dropped two places because of Giri and Kramnik's successes. Nakamura is still the U.S. number one but GM Wesley So is getting closer: the difference is 14 points for FIDE, but only 6.4 points in the live ratings.

GM Sergey Karjakin lost 12.9 points in the Russian Championship Superfinal and dropped out of the top 10. GM David Navara entered the top 20 after winning 10.9 points in the Czech and Chinese leagues.

Up-and-coming player GM Yu Yangyi gained 19.1 points with his win in Qatar and six more games from the Chinese league. Yu is now the world's 29th player. GM Arkadij Naiditsch lost no fewer than 37 points, but as we saw yesterday he's already on the way back.

January 2015 FIDE Ratings (Top 20)

(You can find the top 100 here.)

In the women's list there were few changes (the top six remained the same) as not many female players were active in December — as far as classical games are concerned.

GM Judit Polgar remains the number one player for at least another month, just two points ahead of GM Hou Yifan.

That makes it 26 years on top :) Happy New Year! pic.twitter.com/6A62ZILRDT

— Judit Polgar (@GMJuditPolgar) January 1, 2015

GM Valentina Gunina won the Russian women's championship and took GM Alexandra Kosteniuk's place as world number seven. GM Bela Khotenashvili was the best female player in Qatar, won 22 points and entered the world's top 10. 

January 2015 FIDE Women Ratings (Top 20)

(You can find the top 100 here.)

K-factor

The “K-factor” is the maximum possible rating adjustment per game. In recent years FIDE has increased the K-factor for certain categories of players, up to 40 at present. According to the current rating regulations,

K = 40 for a player new to the rating list until he has completed events with at least 30 games
K = 20 as long as a player's rating remains under 2400.
K = 10 once a player's published rating has reached 2400 and remains at that level subsequently, even if the rating drops below 2400.
K = 40 for all players until their 18th birthday, as long as their rating remains under 2300.

The January 2015 list has caused some discussion about whether 40 might be too high. Especially the case of the 14-year-old Azerbaijani player Parviz Gasimov raised eyebrows: he was rated 1949 in October, and 2517 in January!

WGM Natalija Pogonina tweeted:

From FIDE 1949 to 2517 in three months. 568 points. Absolutely unbelievable!!! #chess #K40 http://t.co/Kw3uertlac

— Natalia Pogonina (@Pogonina) December 31, 2014

GM Michal Krasenkow posted about it on Facebook too, where it was discussed.

Two remarks from that discussion:

GM Sam Shankland: “This is pretty ridiculous. For the most part FIDE ratings are much better than the U.S. national ones, But we did get one thing right -- compounding events and not assuming the monthly supplement for one's rating change in the second tournament of the cycle. In this player's case for example, if they had compounded his results and used his live rating of 2510 for his last tournament, a score of 5.0 / 9 against a 2240 average would have definitely brought the published rating back down to earth. Not that this makes K = 40 any more sensible, but it would at least limit some damage.”

GM Michal Krasenkow: “Sam Shankland, thanks for your remark! That would be the best way to do but, apparently, the FIDE infrastructure does not allow instant recalculation of thousands of tournaments worldwide. For instance, the Qatar Open WAS Reported and Rated later than Bundesliga and other events which finished a couple of weeks later. And there are a lot of rated tournaments we do not even know about. Therefore it looks like rating periods can not be abandoned yet and live ratings can not become official. Alas :-( ”

Update: Here's a critical reaction to FIDE on the Parviz Gasimov case.

Chess.com Blitz & Bullet

Let's move on to our very own lists for Blitz and Bullet chess — something we also did back in November. We only look at players who have been active on the site recently.

In our blitz ratings GM Hikaru (Hikaru Nakamura) has a similar lead as Carlsen in the FIDE ratings. Compared to November he gained 8 points and is now 50 points ahead of the number two. We find a new name there: GM LyonBeast, a.k.a. “MVL,” or Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. The Frenchman gained no less than 102 points!

GM LexySexy (Baadur Jobava), however, lost 74 points and dropped out of the top 10. Another world-class player, GM 2Vladimirovich90 (Dmitry Andreikin), entered the top 20 and reached #5 by playing his Death Match with MVL and the recent Titled Tuesday tournament.

That, as we know, was won by Chess.com author GM DanielNaroditsky, who jumped to #7 in the blitz ratings:

Chess.com Live Chess | Blitz, 1 January 2015 (Top 20)

Nakamura's lead is even bigger in our bullet list: there he's 157 points ahead of Andreikin. In November IM brute4ever (Siddharth Ravichandran) was the number two on the list, but because of inactivity he fell out.

IM MEsserman (Marc) is not in the blitz top 20, but holds an impressive third place in the bullet. Recently it looks like he's been playing against engines only!

Chess.com Live Chess | Bullet, 1 January 2015 (Top 20)