After 26 Years Judit Polgar Loses #1 Spot To Hou Yifan

In the March 1 FIDE Rating list for the first time in 26 years GM Judit Polgar (2675) is not the number one female player anymore. GM Hou Yifan tops the list with 2686.

When Viswanathan Anand was about to lose his world title to Magnus Carsen in Chennai in 2013, one question was heard often: “Is this the end of an era?” It seems that this is the case for women's chess: the Judit Polgar era has ended.

More than half a year ago the Hungarian chess legend retired from playing chess, and today, for the first time in 26 years, she is not the number one female player on the rating list anymore. GM Hou Yifan is.

Polgar stopped playing women's tournaments at an early age, and partly because of that she managed to become one of the world's best players, among the men. (She was the world #8 in the fall of 2005.)

To make a next big step, the reigning women's world champion should probably do the same — but for that she needs invitations.

Ironically, a month after she reached the top of the list (rated more than a hundred points higher than her closest rival, Humpy Koneru!), Hou Yifan will lose her world title.

She won't be playing the knockout world championship in Sochi, Russia (16 March - 7 April) because she had already signed to play a tournament in Hawaii.

Hou Yifan has stated that she doesn't find ratings and records very important in life. Nonetheless, her next goal would normally be to reach 2700, and then maybe beating Polgar's highest ever rating, 2735.

Today Polgar posted the following on Facebook:

March 2015 FIDE Ratings | Women, Top 30

In the men's list the biggest change is the big jump GM Hikaru Nakamura made. He was #10 in the previous list, but he won 22 points in Gibraltar and Zurich to climb to the #3 spot, only 4 points behind GM Fabiano Caruana. At the start of 2014 Nakamura was also briefly the world #3.

GM Alexander Grischuk lost his 2800 rating and dropped to the fifth spot. For the rest there were few changes until we see the name of GM Evgeny Tomashevsky on 16th place. His huge success in Tbilisi meant a climb of 15 places on the list.

GM David Navara is out of the top 20, but in the live ratings he is in fact the number 15. For some reason some Czech league weren't calculated yet, and he has also started well at the European Championship.

March 2015 FIDE Ratings | Top 30

Chess.com Blitz & Bullet

The last time we looked at the Blitz and Bullet lists of the Chess.com server was in January. GM Hikaru Nakamura (GM Hikaru) has kept his lead in both lists, but there's a new runner-up in the blitz: GM Baadur Jobava (GM LexySexy).

Jobava's great results in the Titled Tuesday tournaments have their effect on his online rating. He is up to 2789 and pushed GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (GM LyonBeast) to third place.

GM Georg Meier (GM GeorgMeier) climbed from 9th place in January to 5th place now. On the 11th spot we find the first IM, who wasn't even in the top 20 two months ago: IM Lucas Liascovich (IM megarompa) of Buenos Aires.

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

In the bullet list GM Dmitry Andreikin (GM 2Vladimirovich90) is still the number 2 behind Nakamura, but there Vachier-Lagrave has climbed from number 5 to number 3.

In fourth place we find GM Wesley So (GM GMwesley_so), who lost the bullet section of his Death Match with Nakamura 4.5-10.5 but won rating nonetheless. 

Below the top GMs there are two FMs who can be found on 6th and 7th place: FM Minh Le (FM wonderfultime) of Vietnam and FM Kazim Gulamali (FM GulamaliRises). Quite an achievement!

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