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The April 2006 FIDE rating list is out. While Viswanathan Anand reached an expected 2803 rating he became the fourth player ever to breach the 2800 rating mark. The first three being Garry Kasparov, Vladimir Kramnik and Veselin Topalov. Anand's gain of Elo points came from the Corus Chess Tournament at Wijk aan Zee (see `Anand Creates Tournament Record, Crosses 2800 Mark', published on Jan 30, 2006 in this website!). It is a significant milestone in the 1969-born Anand's chess career.
Now Anand has achieved everything in chess. However, in May this year he will play in the MTel Masters at Sofia and the Turin Chess Olympiad which will reflect who will be No.1 in the July 2006 rating list. The race between Anand and Topalov is expected to be hot in both competitions as only one Elo separates them! Topalov is the No.1 rated as per the April 1 list
The other big gainer is the USA-based Indian P.Magesh Chandran whose rating shot to 2525 and he becomes India's twelfth grandmaster. Both Anand's milestone and Magesh's achievement were expected to happen and these are the two significant changes for Indians in this quarterly rating list.
All the three Indians, Anand, Sasikiran and Harikrishna are at their all time best Elo ratings. This is the first time India has three players in the world top 25. This should be bad news for our opponents at Turin!
The world top ten: 1 V.Topalov (Bul) 2804, 2 Anand (Ind) 2803, 3 L.Aronian (Arm) 2756, 4 P.Svidler (Rus) 2743, 5 P.Leko (Hun) 2738, 6 R.Ponomariov (Ukr) 2738, 7 A.Morozevich (Rus) 2730, 8 Vladimir Kramnik (Rus) 2730, 9 Boris Gelfand (Isr) 2727, 10 V.Ivanchuk (Ukr) 2723, 21 K.Sasikiran (Ind) 2692, 25 P.Harikrishna
(Ind) 2680.
Koneru Humpy disappointed in the World Women's championship but however continues to occupy the No.1 position among women after Judit Polgar. Everyone knows that Humpy plays in men and women events while Judit Polgar plays only in men events. Vijayalakshmi moved from twelfth to eleventh place.
1 Judit Polgar (Hun) 2711, 2 Koneru Humpy (Ind) 2548, 3 A.Kosteniuk (Rus) 2540, 4 P.Cramling (Swe) 2520, 5 Xu Yuhua (Chn) 2517, 6 M.Chiburdanidze (Geo) 2504, 7 A.Stefanova (Bul) 2502, 8 T.Kosintseva (Rus) 2489, 9 Hoang Thanh Trang (Hun) 2487, 10 Zhu Chen (Chn) 2483, 11 Vijayalakshmi
(Ind) 2472
For the entire rating list one can visit www.fide.com
and select ratings from the options.
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