Nice to see Naiditsch with exactly 2700 :)

GuidedByVoices,
I understand that "boring" in your vocabulary means "well" but then, what is wrong with anti-Marshall or semi-slav?

Hi Peter,

Maybe not the subject of this article, but I noticed that according the list Giri is now playing for The Netherlands.
Do you know if he can play in the Dutch championship or for the Olympic team?

Yes, Giri did change his federation (see http://ratings.fide.com/fedchange.phtml?year=2009) and is eligible for the Dutch Ch. He can represent the Dutch Chess Federation in European and World Championships as from January 5, 2010. (And as can also be read at the FIDE site, such a change costs 800 Euros...)

Some error in the report. Top 10 is not identical to live rating list. Anand is at 2788 in live after his two bundesliga wins. In FIDE he is as 2783.

Another error is chessvibes states Anand lost 8 points in wijz aan zee and linares. Anand never played Wizk aan zee.

Don't consider the first an error, as I was talking about an "identical top 10". But the second was indeed, a strange one as I was at Corus the whole tournament. :-)

Ah I see, I its identical "TOP 10". Thanks for the quick correction and update.

Regarding the Topalov vs Anand delta, the sentence "The gap is now 29 points - quite a wide margin at top level" does not make any sense.

If Topalov 2812 is taken as 100% playing strenght, then it turns out he is 1% stronger than Anand in this very particular and discrete moment of the chess history. Give me a break!

I can't help but feel that Anand is not particularly sleepless because of the this GAP...

Let's face it, anyone on top of 2650 or so can beat anyone else in the world IF the chance of playing "inside the bubble" is on offer... Look at Malakhov, such a strong player... Still walking in circles to get one single invitation to a super leko-aronian-ivanchuk-etc-topalov tournament...

I am absolutely fed up with the same guys, playing the same 3 or 4 openings, not ever risking to get below the 2700 mark, because the average of their tournaments is 2750, so they need to lose a whole bunch of games to go down... Anyway, as they like each other, they just keep drawing... So, now 10 elo points for you, then you give them back to me in the next "supe-boring-tournament", OK?

I propose to get rid of all this "always the same guys/stuff tournamnets" and go straight for massive Opens with a lot of money at stake. Let's get some fun after all!

Apparently you're fed up with many things, but critizising this sentence for it is a bit too much, isn't it. The only point I wanted to make is that 29 points is quite difficult to overcome at the very top, especially in just three months.

GuidedByVoices, while I agree with you in your main argument, that is, participants should be a little bit more varied to make chess super tournaments less monotonous (by the way, you might be interested in the upcoming San Sebastian tournament 6-16 july, there are a bunch of atypical faces), I have to say that some of the names you give are not the best examples. More concretely:
Polgar- She gets invited to more tournaments than some higher-rated men just because she´s a woman. She also normally refuses to play in women´s tournaments, that would be a way to raise her rating a little bit I think.
Vallejo- After a very good year last year (in which he got lots of invitations) he´s started 2009 on the wrong foot. Just check his Corus or European Championship results.
Akopian, Eljanov and Kasimdzhanov are playing the FIDE Grand Prix, so it should be a good chance to prove what they´re capable of, sohuldn´t it?

I don´t know but personally I miss Shirov a little bit. I´m happy that he´s playing in Sofia :)

It is also really a wide margin. By any standards. The difference between nr. 2 and 3 is much less: 13 points. Between 3 and 4 it's 11. Between 4 and 5 it's only 3. Then 2, then 1, then 2, etc. Further on, a similar picture arises. Looking at 'top level' (i.e. the top 100) I'd say 'big margin' are the only apporpriate words to describe the difference between Topalov and Anand.

Guitarspider, in the live rating list Naiditsch is 'already' at 2707, whereas Nakamura seems to be below 2700 (not mentioned) again.
Don't know which events are missing from the FIDE list, presumably the various (unfinished) team competitions they are both playing.

@CAL|Daniel:
"I will notice the new faces (particularly Wang!) have done terrible at every event they’ve been at "
I agree, the other new faces Dominguez and Movsesian also played terribly at Corus 2009! This is of course IRONY, they still had a chance for first place with one round to go ... .
@GuidedByVoices:
Along with ChessGirl, I agree with your main argument. However, further corrections or comments on your list:
Tiviakov used to get his Corus A invitations, but then merely tried to draw all of his games (mixing up things with the Scandinavian was the exception not the rule). I would consider this at least as boring as Kramnik or Leko, but at a slightly lower level. And this is presumably the reason why the organizers then invited other Dutch players - even though Tiviakov himself claims to be discriminated because he wasn't born in the Netherlands.
Polgar used to get lots of supertournament invitations before her baby break.
Navara also had his top invitations when his rating was above 2700. Then it fell down all the way to 2633 (presently again 2654). This year at Corus B, Navara clearly showed that he is talented, but he wasn't quite consistent enough to prov that 2700+ is "where he belongs".
Karpov - with all due respect for his entire career, I think he is nowadays a bit overrated even at his present 2644 (2699 as you mention is from 2000). He may prove me wrong at the upcoming San Sebastian tournament ... .

I think people who believe 29pts is a big difference are either ignorant of statistics are such a fanboy of topalov to ignore common knowledge.

29pts isn't even enough to statistically change error on this level further its changed by the fact the farther away from the mean ratings you get the more inaccurate it becomes (ie the 10 would in fact be the MOST fluxuacting players unless they choose not to play like kramnik) (evidence... notice Ivanchuk isn't top 10 anymore?) Finally a fact that we can't even give two hoots to statistical significance at this level is how low the n value is (# of different opponents) due to the closed nature of super tournaments. Since it is invite only instead of Open tournaments they end up playing the same crowd. So instead of the rating predicting past performance it ends up predicting past performance against a very very select few (in anand's case a mere 17!). Of course the lower the number the more inaccurrate the rating.

It is on these grounds I would like to either see more new faces in super tournaments or big opens. However, I will notice the new faces (particularly Wang!) have done terrible at every event they've been at (I hardly consider Grischuk new just rare).

Finally, I agree with the critic that this obsession over ratings is silly to the extreme. While 29pts might be hard to cover physically... the reality is who gives a flying rats behind? It is just 4 digits that naturally trend upward. In 2 years there might be 30 players over 2800.

However... back to Peter's article... none of this semantical debate was ever mentioned there. He reported the facts as he saw them and should be thanked for this not criticized.

Fine. If you think Anand is somewhat inferior to Topalov, probably I will not convince you otherwise. To my mind, these two strong GMs are fairly level. On the other hand, if ou are so happy with the same tournamnets, players, openings and few rating points exchange, it's OK.

Maybe modern world is all about insignificant, little numbers and also highly repetitive pseudo-competition.

I think many things deserve urgent change in the chess world and I am badly missing some clever and enterprising chess managers to take over the challenge of refreshing our sport. I doubt I am alone on this.

Finally, there is nothing wrong about being critic, sometimes it helps to promote bneficial change.

@J Hall
Thanks for the correction. But the point was if Carlsen had not performed in Linares 2007 and may be one more chance, the invitation would have come down. Same applies to Wang. If he does not perform in M-Tel and finishes last, likely that he wont get invited next year to corus/linares.

@GuidedByVoices

Sponsors will not like to keep inviting players who do not perform well. Another point that was made earlier was if you keep playing 2750+ you will not lose rating points. Thats absurd. We have seen Ivanchuk and Morozevich, shed and gain plenty of points. Same holds true for Radjabov. Take Mamedyarov, he was once 3 in the list and he is not even in top 10 now. Its only Anand, Topalov who maintain their high elo.

"There are more than 10 players who can play chess" -Bologan

"I was not invited to super tournaments because I was rated slightly below 2700. Then I was rated over 2700, but the invitations did not come either" -Khalifman

Mamedyarov is insane (ask Kurnosov). Ivanchuk and Morozevich do not play chess. They play something else. And they probably do not know what their ratings look like. Anyway, they are now on 2746 and 2751; respectively, not something I would call a dreadful situation. And any sponsor not inviting them does not belong to humankind. Ivanchuk and Morozevich will lit up any tournament.

Forget about my arbitrary "low" limit of 2650+. To help you out, here you are a list of those players from the current top 100 list who have been rated 2690 or higher over the last few years:

Tiviakov 2699
Wang 2696
Akopian 2713
Kasimdzhanov 2706
Eljanov 2720
Polgar 2735
Moiseenko 2690
Bologan 2700
Vallejo Pons 2702
Almasi 2691
Sasikiran 2711
Cheparinov 2713
Nisipeanu 2707
Short 2712
Sokolov 2706
Dreev 2705
Sutovsky 2697
Milov 2705
Navara 2726
Karpov 2699
Smirin 2702
Georgiev 2695
Bareev 2739

None of them play half boring as Leko or Kramnik on a regular day. However they are not getting a bunch of invitations to "bubble" tournaments, are they? The huge problem with the majority of these players is how to keep a high and stable rating by playing swiss tournaments. In contrast, the current "elite" players will drop about 10-20 points in a bad year of "bubble" tournaments, at worse. They are well protected by the average rating of 2750 on "their" tournaments.

PS 1: I do not particularly like soccer, but they play the biggest tournaments after gruelling qualifiers, why can't chess be just like that?
PS 2: stop the Petroff, anti-Marshall and (semi)slav... NOW.

@Harish Srinivasan on April 1st, 2009 18.28

What you said about Carlsen is not true: Carlsen was *terrible* in his first two super-tournaments: Tal Memorial 2006 (winless -2) and Corus A 2007 (winless -4!!!). It was only in his 3rd event, Linares 2007, that Carlsen broke out.

In comparison, Wang Yue's 2009 Corus and Linares look quite good. After all, Wang Yue won at least *two* games, beating Carlsen twice. :-)

I agree with the critic.

Well, I do agree that 29 points at this level is quite a big difference. It doesn't necessarily translate into superior vs inferior in head to head encounters. To support the argument that 29 is indeed very big, all you need to look at is the Oct2008 FIDE list when #1 and #6 had a difference of a mere 10 points or so. Topalov, Ivanchuk, Carlsen, Morozevich, Anand and Kramnik I think. It was so crowded at the top at that point of time.

While I agree that Anand may not be losing sleep over this margin, you cannot deny the fact that the ELO is very indicative of the playing strength of a player at that point.

As far closed tournaments with the same players etc, that is a different topic altogether. Sure there are several super strong GM's who just don't get the right kind of breaks. However one can also argue that, if they are a cut above the rest among their ELO range (say someone in 2650 range), then logically, they shd end up at 2740-2750 over a period of 2 years or so (e.g. Aronian, Carlsen and most others who are regulars in super tournaments did that). Take the case of Wang Yue, Dominguez, Movsesian they got invited to super tournaments on the weight of their performances, while others who were regulars at super tournaments are no longer there. But I agree that there are generally too few super tournaments for a significant number of strong GMs to regularly participate.
As for opens, I don't think super GMs have any incentive (rating, money or whatever else) to participate in them.

Once upon a time there were zonal and interzonal tournaments for the WCC. This would certainly sate the critics want for tournaments where the best have to prove themselves by winning against the lesser lights rather than just drawing against their mates at the top. I would imagine that the top players would manage to do just that. We all know that in chess upsets are rare - besides blunders that can happen to anyone, and I am not sure the top players have any great desire to play against players graded, say, 100 below them just to prove the can beat them.
However, when zonal/interzonals were used for the WCC no-one in the chess world cared much for ELO grades - a modern institution anyway - as the path to the top was mapped out. In the ever-changing world of elite chess and the farce that is the WCC it is understandable that players preserve their ratings. Back in the day a player proved his/her credentials by performing in the WCC cycle and as this was open to all - ratings were only an ego boost.
*read more about Sutton's Thoughts on Modern Chess in his soon to be published autobiography "Beer, Fags and Chess" available through amazon.

@GuidedByVoices There you go again. I haven't said anywhere that I think Anand is somewhat inferior to Topalov. And I haven't said there's something wrong with being critic either. I encourage you to continue deliver criticism over here, but please direct it to the right notions, arguments and standpoints.

If you do not dare to clearly state that Topalov is stronger than Anand in any way, why then you promote the idea that Topalov's few extra rating points count at all?

I mean, your sentence "wide margin at the top level" is worth nothing. I can tell you that Anand defeated Topalov's daddy Kramnik fair and square... Meanwhile, Topalov (the 2800+ gun) was embarrased by his absolutely shaky win over a certain USA GM who was "only 2720"... Had Kamsky managed his clock a bit better and spotted a few fairly easy winning tries in the last game of the challenger's match, a completely different story should have been written by you over here.

Still, I am only FIDE 2165 but I am 100% sure if I were allowed to play in "2300+ bubble" I would also be 2300+... I would be even as radical as to eliminate FIDE ratings for 2 years and then would bring it back... I bet you would be rather surprised, because without the "bubble effect", it is quite posible that Svidler or Jakovenko take spot number one, why not? To my mind they are not inferior to anyone else, they just do not get invited... Why should we rely on "invitations" to tournaments. I love the idea of big opens and qualifiers for the bigger tournaments throughout the year...

I am out of here. Enjoy talking about chess as much as I do.

"I am 100% sure if I were allowed to play in “2300+ bubble” I would also be 2300+"

Yes, GuidedbyVoices, and 1900 players think that if they are allowed in the 2100+ bubble they would also be 2100+ ...

But even apart from this shall we say twisted view of reality, nobody promoted any idea at all. It is a FACT that the margin between the nr. 1 and 2 is the widest of the whole top 100. Don't try to interpret what you don't read.

@GuidedByVoices: There's nothing wrong with stating that 29 point is a wide margin at top level. It's just a fact. Many would prefer to see a gentleman at the top of the rating list instead of a talented player misguided into paranoia, but that's no reason to deny that Topalov is indeed at the top of the rating list by quite a wide margin.

Unfortunately, it seems that I have not made myself clear enough here. I do not give much to the ratings in the top.

The reason? Well, if you are 2799 and exclusively play tournaments with an average of 2750, against opponents that you know so well (after playing them so many times over the last years), with a second who keeps the bite up on your openings... How on earth are you expected to drop of a 2750+ rating? Can't you see the "bubble effect" here?

Chess at the top is depressing these days. You can see a lot about the Petroff, Marshall and (semi) Slav but not much more... These guys are so boring, that they even draw under 25 moves without remorse!

It's a pity, because chess is so beatiful and so good for children at school for instance. I think I have gone successfully through a PhD and 2 postdoctoral positions in part because how much chess gave me when I was younger...

Who will ever manage to show a game from a "super-bubble-tourney" to children, explaining to them: the petroff is very solid, in this game Leko-Kramnik you can see a novelty on move 22 and the draw was agreed on move 24, after massive exchanges down the e-file... Nice. Enjoy the elite. So much fight going on there...

I do not care anyhow, one can always play over games from the pre-computer age GMs. BTW, in my long career as chess amateur I have consistently scored 50% against 2300+ opposition, but I can't push any further (no time for more games as my job is way too demanding). I was not talking about rookies dreaming of higher ratings, you need a strong player to be given the oportunity to display his full strenght. Surely, it must be easier to stay inside the bubble than dropping out.

I do not agree with the fact that "not being invited to super tournament" makes it impossible to reach the highest ELO ratings. People have done it in the past, so why should it be impossible now?

By the way: did you look at the line-up of Corus last January? Lot of "new" faces!

It is absurd statement that people who get invited to super GM tournaments will automatically gain rating and become super players. Wang Yue has been invited twice this year and is again invited to M-Tel. If he ends up doing worse in these tournaments, he is not going to be invited again. May be just one more time, thats it. People like Carlsen , Aronian did well when invited. Recollect, Carlsen in one year won corus B group and hence a seeding automatic to A group. And again, he did very well. And hence he continues to be invited.
Statement that anyone above 2650 can beat anyone else on a given day may be true. But that will just one odd day when a 2650 beats a 2780 player. He is going to draw or lose on most occassions.
If GuidedByVoices thinks its that easy to get to the top by just merely getting invitations, come out of that world. Wang Yue invited and played in corus lost rating points in it. You just dont gain elo if you are invited. You need to be good to compete against the top. He also lost points in Linares by the way.

Get in terms with what is really true before finding reasons for your own frustration. All the super GM's above 2750+ have earned their way upto the top. It has by no means been an easy journey. Only special people need to get up there and remain there. If anyone and everyone above 2650 can get up there, only then people should be sick and tired of the sport. Or unless, they are an exception like GuidedByVoice.