World champion Viswanathan Anand hit a career-high rating of 2810 in the latest world ranking list released by the World Chess Federation (FIDE).
The rating, effective from Saturday, however, was not good enough to help Anand keep the No. 1 spot he gained since November 1. The second placed Anand had to make way for Norway's Magnus Carlsen who regained the top position at 2814. In the last two months, Carlsen gained 12 points to Anand's six. Armenia's Levon Aronian and Russia's Vladimir Kramnik retained the third and fourth places while the biggest gainer among the elite was USA's Hikaru Nakamura who jumped five places to hold the 10th position.
Among the Indians, second-placed K. Sasikiran climbed two places to be 45th after reaching 2690, up two points since November 1. Third-placed P. Hari Krishna gained 10 points to reach 2667 and jumped from the 87th spot to the 74th.
Sadly, for yet another year, the leading Indian trio could not play in the country due to lack of suitable opportunities.
With the top-10 players of the country averaging 2641 rating points, India is placed sixth among the leading chess-playing nations. Those ahead of India are Russia (2734), Ukraine (2694), France (2654), China (2653) and Armenia (2649). Currently, India has 23 Grandmasters and 72 International Masters among 196 titled players.
The lists:World (Top-10): Magnus Carlsen (Nor, 2814), 2. Viswanathan Anand (Ind, 2810), 3. Levon Aronian (Arm, 2805), 4. Vladimir Kramnik (Rus, 2784), 5. Sergey Karjakin (Rus, 2776), 6. Veselin Topalov (Bul, 2775), 7. Alexander Grishcuk (Rus, 2773), 8. Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (Aze, 2772), 9. Vassily Ivanchuk (Ukr, 2764), 10. Hikaru Nakamura (USA, 2751).
India (Top-20): 1. Viswanathan Anand (2810), 2. K. Sasikiran (2690), 3. P. Hari Krishna (2667), 4. Surya Shekhar Ganguly (2651), 5. Sandipan Chanda (2641), 6-7. Parimarjan Negi (2607), K. Humpy (2607), 8. G.N. Gopal (2597), 9. Abhijeet Gupta (2590), 10. S.P. Sethuraman (2545), 11. P. Magesh Chandran (2537), 12-14. Deep Sengupta (2530), B. Adhiban (2530), Tejas Bakre (2530) 2530), 15-16. Abhijit Kunte (2520), D. Harika (2520), 17. S. Arun Prasad (2513), 18. Vidit Gujarathi (2495), 19. M.R. Lalith Babu (2491), 20. Deepan Chakkravarthy (2485).
India (Women Top-10): 1. K. Humpy (2607), 2. D. Harika (2520), 3. S. Vijayalakshmi (2454), 4. Tania Sachdev (2391), 5-6. Soumya Swaminathan (2353), Eesha Karavade (2353), 7. Padmini Rout (2336), 8. Nisha Mohota (2326), 9. S. Meenakshi (2323), 10. Mary Ann Gomes (2306).
