Fabiano Caruana: This kid is for real

Could be the next big thing in chess

Just keep an eye on this 16 year old American-Italian. I'm not very good on predicting things, but if my instinct and feeling would not deceived me, we are seeing the next Vassily Ivanchuk of chess. His quick thinking, good judgment in spite of severe time trouble and wide encyclopedic knowledge of openings makes him an ideal heir to the king of blitz and rapid chess, Vassily Ivanchuk. Although he was knocked out in the quarterfinals of Cap d'Agde by former world champion and legendary grandmaster Anatoly Karpov, (winning a game against Karpov, nonetheless) he demonstrated exceptional maturity and potential to become a future world championship challenger if not a world champion himself someday. In this tournament, he defeated Bu Xiangzhi (2704) of China in round 1, Frenchman Maxime Vachier Lagrave (2716) in round 5, and drew with Vassily Ivanchuk (2786) in round 7. A bit of biography: in September 2002 at age 10, he became the youngest American (and Italian) to defeat a Grandmaster (Aleksander Wojtkiewicz) in an official tournament - surpassing the record set by Hikaru Nakamura. Caruana is currently the strongest player of Italy with FIDE rating of 2640. He won the Corus 2008 Group C tournament at age 15, ironically the same group and tournament Filipino prodigy, Wesley So is scheduled to compete early next year. So just turn 15 last October with FIDE rating of 2610. It would be an interesting comparison to see if Wesley could match what Fabiano achieved at Corus Group C tournament.

-Photo courtesy of Fabiano Caruana's Official Site

NCFP website is back: without a vengeance

After nearly two weeks of site shut down, the premier chess site of the Philippines, the NCFP website finally returns on the web though it hardly made any changes at all as everyone of us might have expected. You'll still find the same layout with embarrassing outdated rankings of the top ten players of perhaps eight to ten years ago. Also there was still this poll with a very naive question asking everyone if they think Kasparov is the greatest player of chess! Can somebody contact the NCFP and ask them to please remove these useless features from their site. It's really quite embarrassing.

Very interesting blitz video

what do you think of this video? :)

almost every moves within the dying seconds are "unclear". Pieces falls, and then Akobian/Nakamura correct its place while opponents clock is already running. When Akobian put his pawn on the last rank he didn't promote it and push his clock. According to FIDE rules this is an illegal move. Instead, he had to stop his clock and fine a Queen (or any other piece to which he wanted to promote his pawn) and then, start his clock and promote the pawn.

If there's anything wrong with my analysis and observation, please feel free to correct me. Nevertheless, this is one of the most impressive blitz video I've ever seen full with commanding authority (Nakamura). Whooooh!

Sham chess bloggers

Remember guys when I mentioned that I'm switching to a new blog address at c****p*lse? Well guess what. I was shock when I found out this morning that somebody has already taken my new blog address which I will never ever mention again! This sham chess bloggers stole the site address believing that readers of this blog is actually viewing a new blog from ChessHeroes I previously mentioned! It's pretty obvious that he stole it because it never appeared on the web two days ago. No c****p*lse for chessheroes . Forget that I'm switching. We'll stick with chessheroes! So you call yourself a chess blogger? Shame on you if you think you are one.

Anand-Topalov in 2009?

Surely, we don't want to see these but chess fans are obviously slowly loosing interest in the ongoing championship match between Kramnik and Anand. So am I. Trailing the series 5-2 with only five games left to play, the world knows that it's all but over for Kramnik. In game 7, Kramnik offered Anand a draw in just 21 moves which Anand politely decline until draw was agreed 15 moves later. But it is quite plain to see that Kramnik is already conceiving the match and the championship to one of the finest tactician the world has ever seen, Viswanathan Anand. It's sad to see that Kramnik has to suffer this way.

On the other major tournament, The European Club Cup, another hopeful chess champion, Gata Kamsky who is schedule to face in November the winner of Bilbao Grand Slam (one of the strongest chess tournament in history), Bulgarian Vaselin Topalov saw the current highest rated American chess player suffered consecutive loses after loses in his matches. I'm not counting out Kamsky's chances with Topalov but comparing the progress of the two protagonist in previous tournaments results they participated, chess fans are already making their prediction and looking forward to a more exciting championship matches in 2009 between Anand and Topalov.

Save the NCFP website please.

What's wrong with National Chess Federation of the Philippines (NCFP) website? I'm getting worried. It has been closed for four days now. World Youth Chess Championship and Dresden Olympiad is just around the corner and I've got a feeling that the site may not be able to make it in time (if it is being upgraded) for WYCC in Vietnam and Dresden Olympiad. We know that NCFP website remains a non profit one but I think it is better to commercialized it rather than deprive chess fans and journalists from around the world the regular updates on what's happening to Philippine Chess. The irony here is that if you actually type anything that concern's Philippine Chess say the 3rd PGMA cup or 4th Pichay Cup or any of our chess master's players name on the google search bar our ChessHeroes usually ranks higher than NCFP website which is the official website for those tournaments! Of course that drives traffic to my blog but that's not a good sign because ChessHeroes is just a personal, random chess blog and not a regular site for Philippine Chess news. We cannot use chess blogs as a substitute for Philippine chess news updates because a blog is usually kept by only one person who also have an 8 to 5 job at the office. There have to have one, regularly updated official site on Philippine Chess complete with staffs like editor, reporter, photographer, web designers etc. Can any business minded group or organization (foreign or Filipino, doesn't matter) take over the site just to save NCFP on the web please?

Chess Kills!

You heard it right folks. Playing too much chess can destroy human lives! Check out HERE and HERE.

Magnus Carlsen's Blog

Below is the link to Magnus Carlsen's Blog which is being kept by his father, Henrik Carlsen. The text is readable but you may find it hard to understand sometimes. I don't like the image of Magnus on his blog. He looks like he's coming from a long hours of sleep :)

http://blog.magnuschess.com/

1st WMSG quick review for Philippine Chess Team: Paragua and Sadorra, impressive

Because of time constraint, I wasn't able to post something on this blog regarding the progress of our chess team competing in Beijing particularly the latter part of the tournament where the mixed and pair blitz/rapid category was being held. In spite of this, I never fail to follow the progress of our team but I'm pretty sure that there are blogs or sites out there that regularly cover this event for our Filipino chess fans. Anyway, here's a quick review. We never won a single medal :) We are very close of doing so, not once but twice. I've already blog about Mark Paragua's 4th place finished in the Individual blitz event. For detail stories, check my previous post over HERE. Then we even tie for second place in the preliminary phase of the men's rapid before we eventually collapses in the final rounds. IM Julio Catalino Sadorra seems unstoppable in the early rounds. He even had an impressive five game winning streak, defeating two Grandmasters and three International Masters in the process and with an average of 3000+ rating performance to carry the hopes alive for the team before bowing to a tough Grandmaster from Ukraine in the seventh round. In a rapid tournament in Malaysia last August led by GM Darwin Laylo, Sadorra also show good form in the rapid discipline by bringing home the title. You can read the rest of these stories from my previous post over HERE . Please remember that the 1st WMSG chess category is one of the toughest ever held in Asia with lots of grandmasters with 2600 and above ratings seeing action. Below is the complete list of players that represent the country in Beijing:

Philippine Team Members

Mens team:

GM MARK PARAGUA (2526)
IM ROLANDO NOLTE (2489)
IM JULIO CATALINO SADORRA (2431)
IM CHITO GARMA (still clarifying)
NM LEONARDO CARLOS (still clarifying)

Womens Team

SHERILY CUA
CRISTINE ROSE MARIANO
KIMBERLY JANE CUNANAN
JAN JODILYN FRONDA
RIDA JANE YOUNG

Next stop for our Pinoy woodpushers is the World Youth Chess Championship in Vung Tau Vietnam on Ocober 20 then we're all heading to Dresden for the Chess Olympiad on November.

Making A Chess Board The Quick & Easy Way

If you are thinking on starting a new chess business of your own, you may want to try this one up.



Making A Chess Board The Quick&Easy Way - Celebrity bloopers here

Quote of the Day...or not

Still can't get over Kramnik

Former world chess champion turns political activist, Garry Kasparov still can't get over to his string of losses he suffered to his former prodigy and second, Vladimir Kramnik as he made another disparaging remarks against him on his game three loss to the very same person Kasparov defeated in a championship match in 1995, Viswanathan Anand.

"Great choice by Vishy! [With 8..a6] he dragged Kramnik into this nightmare instead of allowing him to play slowly. It was good preparation and also good psychology to kick some sand in Kramnik's face and show him he wasn't afraid. I didn't see the whole thing, but when I came back from a meeting and saw the position after 22..Rg7 I thought Kramnik had had it. At first glance it looks like the game was well played by both players. Just looking at it I'm not sure why Kramnik couldn't play 33.Kb3. Maybe he can give up his queen and still draw with the a-pawn." On-the-fly comments from Garry Kasparov, recorded by Mig Greengard.

With all due respect to Mr. Kasparov, I simply don't get it. As far as I know, one should never mock a defeated player coming of a tough game and more importantly if he's battling on one of the biggest match of his life? Of course that was somewhat understandable on Kasparov part. Kasparov toy with Anand and Kramnik never had so many problems with Kasparov over the board. It's quite easy sometimes to be in friendly terms with players we usually dominates than those who completely dominates us. Kasparov is one of those people I guess. He never once said a good words to Kramnik following his 2000 WCC destruction to him where he was unable to pull off a single game. As WGM Susan Polgar put it: WIN WITH GRACE LOSE WITH DIGNITY!




-Photo from wikipedia the free encyclopedia

Anand is the sentimental favorite for most Filipino chess fan

A "Bombay"? no, he is a fine Brahmin.

Okay I have to admit that since the day I became truly obsessed of playing chess, there is no other contemporary chess player that really caught my imagination or spent many hours studying the master's games other than Vladimir Kramnik. Kramnik's style of chess is more finely crafted than anyone I know of, not even Anand or Karpov (in my own personal observation) can match the way Kramnik transformed the dull looking sixty four squared chess board of opposite color and its thirty two stagnant pieces into something that is structurally beautiful like the Temple of Partheon or Mozart's 41'st "Jupiter" symphony. Simply put, Kramnik is my chess hero. And with all that said, it is quite ironic if I declare that I'm partially rooting for Anand against Kramnik in their championship match. And for what reason? I'm not hesitant to admit that I always prided myself (so as many Filipino chess fan's do, I believe) every time I heard on how Anand talks about getting started in chess as a young boy in his early days in the Philippines especially on how a popular chess television show help him to hone his tactical skills. In his first DVD in the series, My Career Anand fondly recalls:

“My sister found a chess club nearby when I was 7...A few years later my father got posted in Manila, in the Philippines, in 1979 right after the Karpov-Korchnoi match in Baguio. There was a 1 hour television show on chess everyday. My mother would record the game with pen and paper and then play it over with me when I got home from school. And we would also solve the puzzles. Eventually I solved so many of the puzzles that they invited me down to the television station. Each time you solved the puzzle they gave you a free book. Eventually they told me to come there and take all the books I want, but please don't enter the puzzle contest anymore!”

And if I'm not mistaken (please do correct me) that chess television show mentioned by Anand was hosted by no other than FIDE Honorary President Florencio Campomanes?

But anyway, Of Anand and Fischer who took residence in the Philippines for a couple of years, share the same good memories and both talks fondly of the days they spent in my country.

Thanks to Fred Lucas website for allowing me to post this beautiful picture here in ChessHeroes.

Busy days at the office

I haven't posted anything for 3 days now. Truth is our Head Engineer gave us all a friendly advice that we need to work triple time to be able to meet our deadlines before Friday. And I think we're on track on achieving that, thankfully. Staying at the office after the regular working hours (eight to five) is something I really hate to do but it's my job anyway. I'm working by the way, as a full time AutoCAD operator here in Manila and very few in the corporate world knows how back breaking this job can be especially if your working for a large construction company. I missed out so many events so far in the chess world. We have the the first two drawn games of Kramnik-Anand championship duel and the World Sports Mind Games in China. The live games and coverage of the latter, if you will ask me, I give a thumbs down. It's so disappointing. Anyway, we're back online and that's a piece of good news ;)

Official Seconds for Anand and Kramnik

Anand:
Peter Heine Nielsen (Denmark), Rustam Kasimdzhanov (Uzbekistan), Radoslav Wojtaszek (Poland) and Surya Shekhar Ganguly (India).

Kramnik:
Peter Leko (Hungary), Sergey Rublevskyi (Russia) and Laurent Fressinet (France).

Quick review about ChessHeroes

Here's a quick review of our visitors. Below are the top 10 countries that frequently dropped by my chess blog. We have a total of 11, 734 visitors since we started this blog nearly 7 months ago. Not many but it is still a suckling baby blog anyway ;)

we have lots of regular visitors from the middle east, I noticed. Perhaps Filipinos working in the region? Hello there! Kumusta na po kayo dyan! Paboritong paborito nyo si Wesley So 'di po ba? Para po talaga sa inyo ang blog na ito.

1. USA 34.3 %
2. Philippines 20.7 %
3. Australia 15.2 %
4. Canada 11.0 %
5. UAE 6.2 %
6. India 2.7 %
7. UK 2.4 %
8. Qatar 2.0 %
9. Singapore 1.2 %
10. Germany 0.8 %

others 3.7 %

Anand's Seconds

World chess champion Viswanathan Anand reportedly dropped Magnus Carlsen from the list of his seconds. Anyway here's Team Anand: Peter Heine Nielsen, Rustam Kasimdzhanov, Radoslaw Wojtaszek.

Leko is Kramnik's second (Anand will pick Carlsen?)

Fighting times: Leko - Kramnik 2004 WCC

They were both mortal rivals before and fought an epic championship match in 2004. Now they are allies and will work together in the same camp. Setting their ego's aside, Kramnik hired his old antagonist, Peter Leko to help him for his upcoming championship match with Indian grandmaster and current world champion, Viswanathan Anand two days from now. There is a rumor that Anand's would be second (it remains a secret) is no other than the 17 yeard old phenom, Magnus Carlsen. If this were to be true, experience wise, I guess Kramnik has already gain a decisive strategical advantage in this area even before the first piece on the board was ever move. I can't find any good second for Kramnik other than Leko. Leko has the experience of playing a World championship final against Kramnik. So, he is well-versed with the preparation for such matches. No doubt that Carlsen is one of the best tactician of the game right now and devilishly very agressive, on the oher hand, talented as Carlsen he is, I am not convince he's talent would be of great help to Anand's preparation against Kramnik. Anand is just fond of Carlsen, that's all. Perhaps, correlating himself this early with the future world champion or even to gain a huge popular fan support. The same way McCain did when he chooses the popular Palin to be his running mate. But personally, I like what I'm seeing. This Kramnik-Leko relationship. Rarely you'll see two rivals sport personalities work together and help this very man who crushed his dreams to become a world champion himself not once but twice. Chess is a gentleman's sport after all so don't be surprise.

-World Chess Championship website
-Photo couresy of Kramnik's offical website

GM Wesley So turns fifteen

Mean at fifteen

GM Wesley So turns fifteen yesterday, October 9. So was born in Manila in 1993 to William and Eleanor So, who are both accountants. He learnt how to play chess when he was 6 years old through his father who was not a good player himself and was 9 when he started to compete in junior active chess tournaments in the country. Wesley So achieved his third and final Grandmaster norm on December 8, 2007 at the third Pichay Cup International Open (Manila, Philippines). He also became the seventh youngest to achieve the Grandmaster title in the history of chess at 14 years, one month and 48 days. So's current Live ratings of 2615 is good enough to make him among the top 150 (135th) chess players on the planet. With the exception of China's WGM Hou Yifan (now the world's youngest GM), he remains the youngest male grandmaster.

From gold to silver for Ecuador

So Ecuador, a small mountainous nation in South America have to give up their Gold medal to second worlds most populous nation and chess world power, India, in the 1st World Mind Sports Games Pairs Blitz event because GM Matamoros of Ecuador reportedly displaced a piece by accident with his shirt sleeve when he reached to press his clock! I took a moment to view the sudden death playoff game between GM Sasikiran Krishnan (2694) of India, playing the white pieces, and GM Carlos Franco Matamoros (2525) of Ecuador playing the black pieces, and by the look of it, there is no way white would be able to stop black Queen's passed pawns. We are not sure if Sasikiran eventually lost his concentration that cost him the match because of his protest and by calling the attention of the arbiters. Anyway, Sasikiran and the Indian team filed a protest and consequently India's plea was heard and in a sudden twist of faith, India bags the Gold medal. On the one hand rules is rules and that's the way it is, even in the most absurd situations like this one.

Oh how I hate blitz...

You can replay the final and highly controversial sudden mach over HERE

For more of this story you can visit the FIDE website

Bu Xiangxi wins 1st World Mind Sports Games Rapid Individual

Is he a reader of ChessHeroes?

Super Grandmasters should win Super tournaments. GM Bu Xiangzhi (2713) of China carry the honor of his fellow "super grandmasters" who were struggling all through out the tournament against their lower rated fellow grandmasters by bagging the gold medal in Men's Rapid Individual Championship. There is no fluke in carrying the title of being a Super Grandmaster after all. Cheers!!

Below is the final match. Heck, even this game must be a scary one for Bu:

Bu Xiangzhi (CHN) 1-0 Korobov Anton (UKR) View

- tournament website and live games
- Photos courtesy of wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

World Mind Sports Games Individual men's rapid Semi final Sudden Death results

There were lots of surprise semifinalist and finalist in this tough WMSG. Boasting of nearly 20 "super GM's" out of 32 players, one can easily say that this is one of the toughest blitz/rapid tournament ever held in Asia. But names that you rarely or never heard of are giving their "super GM" opponent a heavy beating even before they run out of time. Well of course, with the exception of Bu Xiangzhi (2713).

Korobov Anton (UKR) 1-0 Fier Alexandr (BRA) View
Bu Xiangzhi (CHN) 1-0 Zhang Zhong (SIN) View

-Tournament website

Day 2 results for RP chess team in Individual men's rapid

Mixed results for our players in Beijing today. GM Paragua is having a hard time with extra time control against his much higher rated opponents. Tomorrow is the last day of the preliminary and I doubt that Paragua would make it again in the semi final matches. Below is the results and game replays.

Please note: I'm directing you from the official live games website on the "view" links. If you can't see any diagrams (as one of our readers told us) and using firefox browser, you need to download java first (it's free) and install it as an add ons. Please visit the Java website. If you don't know how to do it and having similar problems, I suggest you use Internet Explorer because IE has already a default installed java script on the server. You may need to switch browser (no matter how you hate IE) to be able to view the games.

Round 4

Paragua Mark (PHI) 1-0 Sandipan Chanda (IND) View
Nolte Rolando (PHI) ½-½ Nguyen Ngoc Truong (VIE) View

Round 5

Balogh Csaba (HUN) ½-½ Paragua Mark (PHI) View
Aveskulov Valeriy (UKR) 1-0 Nolte Rolando (PHI) View

Round 6

Paragua Mark (PHI) ½-½ Kryvoruchko Yuriy (UKR) View
Markos Jan (SVK) ½-½ Nolte Rolando (PHI) View

Round 7

Korobov Anton (UKR) 1-0 Paragua Mark (PHI) View
Nolte Rolando (PHI) ½-½ AzmaiparShvili Zura (GEO) View

Day 1 results for RP chess team in Individual men's rapid

It's a win, a loss and a draw for GM Paragua while another Filipino campaigner Rolando Nolte drew his first three match after day 1 of the Individual Men's Rapid. Here's the results and replays of the games:

Round 1

Akobian Varuzhan (USA) 0-1 Paragua Mark (PHI) View
Drozdovskij Yuri (UKR) ½-½ Nolte Rolando (PHI) View

Round 2

Paragua Mark (PHI) 0-1 Bu Xiangzhi (CHN) View
Nolte Rolando (PHI) ½-½ Kryvoruchko Yuriy (UKR) View

Round 3

Drozdovskij Yuri (UKR) ½-½ Paragua Mark (PHI) View
Sandipan Chanda (IND) ½-½ Nolte Rolando (PHI) View

-Tournament offcial website and LIVE games

Sneaky cat coming closer and closer and closer... HORROR!

I saw this one in youtube. Just don't forget to turn on your PC audio. And I'm warning you. This is very frightening :)

Back to earth

Almost but not good enough for GM Mark Paragua. He lost 3 games against his Ukrainian and Greek opponents in both the semi final and sudden death match. Martyn Kravtsiv of Ukraine bags the gold medal.

Final game:

Men

1 Drozdovskij, Yuri (UKR) 1-0 Kravtsiv, Martyn (UKR) Replay the game
2 Paragua, Mark (PHI) 0-1 Banikas, Christos (GRE) Replay the game

Paragua wins World Mind Sports Blitz Preliminary

The quickest thinker of them all! (so far)

GM Mark Paragua surprised everyone by winning the blitz preliminary of the inagural World Mind Sports Games in Beijing, China. Paragua won eight games with one loss and a draw. He wins his first five games before loosing his sixth match. The irony here is Paragua is one of the lowest rated players in the category but come up well ahead on points against other big names in chess like Bu Xiangzhi (15th) and Wang Yue (23rd) of China, Varuzhan Akobian of the USA, Mikhail Gurevich of Turkey and other tough grandmasters with ratings of above 2600. There are 32 total players. It looks like many players did not show up possibly because of the world financial crisis. Philippines had only two participants from the initially announced 5 players.

Standings

1 GM Paragua Mark 8,5
2 GM Banikas Hristos 8,0
3 IM Kravtsiv Martyn 8,0
4 GM Drozdovskij Yuri 8,0
5 GM Gurevich Mikhail 7,5
6 GM Korobov Anton 7,0
7 GM Akobian Varuzhan 6,5
8 GM Le Quang Liem 6,5
9 GM Wang Hao 6,5
10 GM Balogh Csaba 6,5

-Tournament official website

The strangest chess interview ever.

This is definitely one of the most naive interview I've ever seen. Conducting the interview is French GM Robert Fontaine. The girl is the 14 year old Chinese WGM Hou Yifan at Aeroflot Open, Moscow in February 2008. Who was this unfortunate interpreter remains a mystery. But obviously, Hou Yifan was telling him that GM Fontaine looks like a panda (3:28) . Starting at 2:50 :

Fontaine: Did I hear you say I look like a panda?
Interpreter: (explaining)
Hou Yifan: No (giggling) I didn't say that.
Fontaine: It's just a joke (game) yes?
Hou Yifan: Yes. :D.
Interpreter: what made you think that Hou?
Hou: Because he has this nose (pointing) that reminds me of a...
Interpreter: Go ahead he won't understand it
Hou: ...panda (3:28)
(Hou and the interpreter started laughing)
Fontaine: (baffled) What?

Just watch the whole video or you'll miss something. Enjoy, this is just for fun!

Anand not convinced that computers will destroy chess

"For every door the computers have closed they have opened a new one."

Chess technophobic why worried? Now go and insert your Fritz or Rybka DVD's and start training with your chess program. Your World Chess Champion Vishwanathan Anand reiterates his views that computer chess softwares is not a threat at all for the progress of chess but a big help on it's development.

"Today we analyse our games with the computer, in the 16th century people did it with a board. That is only a gradual difference. Preparation for a world championship was always an arms race, in previous times with books, then with seconds, today with computers. The computer is an excellent training partner. It helps me to improve my game." he even dismissed his earlier claims that: "Ten years ago I said that 2010 would be the end, chess would be exhausted. But it is not true, chess will not die so quickly. There are still many rooms in the building which we have not yet entered. Will it happen in 2015? I don't think so." And finally, he added that: "For every door the computers have closed they have opened a new one."

So the world champ assured us all. Anand also speaks about his forthcoming title match against Vladimir Kramnik, his training, and his meeting with Bobby Fischer in Iceland. You can read the rest of this must read interview from ChessBase.com The interview was conducted by SPIEGEL.

Photograph courtesy of chessbase.com

Wesley So up to no.11, Philippines stays on 34th spot

Wesley So is up in the juniors rank from no.18 to no.11. Of the 20, he's the youngest. The Philippines stays on 34th spot of the country rankings despite improving our previous average rating points.

Rank	Name	Title	Country	Rating	Games	B-Year
1	Carlsen, Magnus	g	NOR	2786	31	1990
2	Karjakin, Sergey	g	UKR	2730	24	1990
3	Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime	g	FRA	2716	30	1990
4	Wang, Hao	g	CHN	2696	9	1989
5	Caruana, Fabiano	g	ITA	2640	10	1992
6	Mamedov, Rauf	g	AZE	2631	31	1988
7	Kuzubov, Yuriy	g	UKR	2622	33	1990
8	Li, Chao b	g	CHN	2622	33	1989
9	Nepomniachtchi, Ian	g	RUS	2616	18	1990
10	Zhou, Jianchao	g	CHN	2612	9	1988
11	So, Wesley	g	PHI	2610	69	1993
12	Rodshtein, Maxim	g	ISR	2609	42	1989
13	Andreikin, Dmitry	g	RUS	2603	22	1990
14	Negi, Parimarjan	g	IND	2597	36	1993
15	Howell, David W L	g	ENG	2593	32	1990
16	Zhigalko, Sergei	g	BLR	2592	22	1989
17	Laznicka, Viktor	g	CZE	2591	13	1988
18	Le, Quang Liem	g	VIE	2583	22	1991
19	Fier, Alexandr	g	BRA	2581	31	1988
20	Gareev, Timur	g	UZB	2581	13	1988

Country rank by average rating of top 10 players
		Average	GMs	IMs	Total Titled
1	Russia	2720	184	449	1827
2	Ukraine	2684	69	175	377
3	China	2642	22	13	85
4	United States of America	2637	61	112	498
5	Israel	2637	34	39	136
6	Hungary	2630	40	103	367
7	Azerbaijan	2622	17	12	54
8	France	2621	33	79	285
9	India	2620	17	57	150
10	Germany	2619	70	195	1062
11	Armenia	2614	22	24	65
12	Bulgaria	2609	26	52	113
13	Netherlands	2607	22	65	249
14	Georgia	2605	22	33	97
15	Poland	2599	25	89	279
16	Serbia	2586	47	98	486
17	Spain	2583	32	83	370
18	Romania	2581	19	77	255
19	England	2577	36	54	216
20	Czech Republic	2577	24	63	210
21	Cuba	2565	14	37	213
22	Croatia	2562	28	57	215
23	Belarus	2553	14	25	77
24	Sweden	2544	16	33	112
25	Kazakhstan	2537	12	28	91
26	Greece	2536	10	23	86
27	Uzbekistan	2536	10	9	34
28	Brazil	2536	7	26	107
29	Slovenia	2532	9	24	92
30	Slovakia	2531	10	19	76
31	Argentina	2529	13	62	198
32	Norway	2524	9	22	79
33	Switzerland	2518	7	30	108
34	Philippines	2513	8	23	44
35	Denmark	2508	8	34	83
36	Bosnia & Herzegovina	2506	6	19	75
37	Lithuania	2503	7	12	40
38	Vietnam	2493	5	5	61
39	Italy	2488	6	33	156
40	Moldova	2487	6	21	63
41	Austria	2484	6	37	167
42	Iceland	2482	11	10	47
43	Belgium	2478	4	15	64
44	Peru	2474	2	8	43
45	Former YUG Rep of Macedonia	2471	8	10	44
46	Latvia	2469	8	8	44
47	Canada	2469	6	25	114
48	Montenegro	2461	6	10	53
49	Egypt	2459	2	23	37
50	Iran	2458	5	7	48
51	Estonia	2456	4	13	36
52	Turkey	2455	2	13	49
53	Mexico	2452	5	25	97
54	Indonesia	2451	6	11	41
55	Colombia	2446	2	21	74
56	Australia	2442	3	17	76
57	Finland	2436	5	19	82
58	Scotland	2433	5	9	31
59	Portugal	2428	3	11	34
60	Bangladesh	2417	5	1	25
61	Singapore	2413	3	10	44
62	Turkmenistan	2408	3	6	37
63	Venezuela	2398	1	10	30
64	Ireland	2388	1	6	20
65	Ecuador	2375	1	8	32
66	Mongolia	2369	2	4	23
67	New Zealand	2351	1	6	27
68	Paraguay	2331	2	2	15
69	Uruguay	2328	1	3	11
70	Albania	2325	1	5	11
71	Luxembourg	2313	1	2	13
72	Dominican Republic	2311	1	6	16
73	Malaysia	2310	0	3	17
74	Iraq	2304	0	4	26
75	Faroe Islands	2304	0	3	6
76	Costa Rica	2303	1	7	14
77	Algeria	2302	1	10	22
78	United Arab Emirates	2301	1	5	27
79	Myanmar	2290	1	4	32
80	Syria	2290	0	3	17
81	Wales	2284	0	3	14
82	South Africa	2283	0	6	27
83	Bolivia	2280	1	1	14
84	Tunisia	2256	2	3	9
85	Yemen	2255	0	3	8
86	Jordan	2247	0	1	12
87	Japan	2242	0	1	6
88	Nicaragua	2240	0	2	13
89	El Salvador	2221	0	2	18
90	Jersey	2215	0	0	2
91	Andorra	2213	1	1	5
92	Palestine	2210	1	1	4
93	Zambia	2209	0	3	5
94	Honduras	2203	0	1	9
95	Zimbabwe	2201	0	3	6
96	Thailand	2187	0	0	5
97	Puerto Rico	2186	0	2	6
98	Qatar	2183	2	3	7
99	Monaco	2166	1	0	4
100	Pakistan	2154	0	2	3
101	Sri Lanka	2152	0	0	7
102	Libya	2152	0	0	5
103	Barbados	2150	0	1	6
104	Surinam	2149	0	0	3
105	Guatemala	2139	0	1	12
106	Hong Kong	2137	0	0	8
107	Lebanon	2136	0	1	9
108	Panama	2130	0	0	4
109	Trinidad & Tobago	2129	0	0	5
110	Uganda	2122	0	0	0
111	Jamaica	2117	0	0	3
112	Brunei Darussalam	2112	0	0	1
113	Botswana	2105	0	0	4
114	Nepal	2103	0	0	0
115	Namibia	2098	0	0	2
116	Kyrgyzstan	2096	1	4	11
117	Malta	2095	0	0	4
118	Nigeria	2089	0	4	6
119	Tajikistan	2085	1	3	5
120	Cyprus	2077	0	0	5
121	Papua New Guinea	2072	0	0	1
122	Liechtenstein	2070	0	0	1
123	San Marino	2064	0	0	4
124	Somalia	2064	0	0	0
125	Angola	2053	0	6	8
126	Mozambique	2053	0	0	1
127	British Virgin Islands	2044	0	0	1
128	Seychelles	2022	0	0	0
129	South Korea	1970	1	0	3
130	Guernsey	1965	0	0	3
131	Aruba	1941	0	0	0
132	Kenya	1930	0	0	3
133	Bermuda	1917	0	0	2
134	Chinese Taipei	1875	0	0	0
135	Fiji	1865	0	0	1
136	Bahamas	1862	0	0	0
137	Maldives	1851	0	0	0
138	Macau	1844	0	0	2