Bloated FIDE Ratings of the Elite

There are only two players in the Olympiad rated over 2800 : Carlsen and Topalov. How are they doing ?  Carlsen has lost twice to lower rated GMs and Topalov just lost a game to a sub 2600 GM !!  This supports my opinion that the elite players have bloated ratings that they keep bloated by avoiding Open events and only playing among themselves, thus keeping their ratings bloated. Anand was smart enough to not even play and risk his rating while Kramnik is playing but look at all his draws ! Whats interesting is that Ivanchuk ( same generation as Anand ) is having a great event and he is about the only elite player that still plays in Open events. If all the elite players were to play a few Open events each year you would see their bloated ratings drop like a rock. There would never be any over 2800 for sure......

I disagree with you Reb. I think they are just having bad tournaments. I'm sure you have had some where you played below ur standard.

Both of the only 2 2800's are simply having bad tournaments ?  Kramnik has won only one game and drawn the rest , I would expect a bit more from a board 1 that is also a former world champion....... how to explain Ivanchuk's success ? Then there is Anand, why did he choose not to play ?  Does anyone know ? One thing is certain , he wont lose any rating points if he doesnt play...... I think the top 30 in the world are inflated by 50-100 points....... and if they played in more open events you would see all their ratings come down.......

It's so easy to heckle the top guys in any sport after they "lost" a game. I don't care that their ratings are supposedly inflated. I care that they are able to come up with awe-inspiring chess moves each time they sit down. They're the best for a good reason... even if they don't win every single game. They're the most skilled, dedicated and experienced bunch of players in the world. It's not like we have something better to offer. Give them dudes a break!

Seems like Anand IS giving himself a break.

I don't know the reason but money issues might also explain the missing of Anand. These top guys are pros and they don't play for free...

Apart from the one game (which he won) Kramink has been playing against top class opponents and his performance rating on the official site is only 26 points below his actual rating. So this is hardly that bad considering that the team has also won every match in which he participated thus far - after all the olympics are team competition where individual results are supposed to have secondary importance.

Carlsen and Topalov play against more mixed opposition but for example Carlsen's losses came against top class GMs (Jobava and Adams) with black.

Some element might be they are not so used to taking risks with black. For example Karpov in 70's when need to win against weaker players play a lot Taimanov Sicilian. As he rose to top gradually evolved to playing mostly Petroff's and Caro Kann because draw was good enough against other elite players.

Have you seen Carlsens rise to the top yet? Don't you think he had to get past players lower then 2700 to get to where he could play past that point? No offense Reb mate, but i think you are way off by a long shot on this one.

This isn't the only one. 

Yes i know that mate. Like i said dont mean the 2600 players are a match for the top 30 players. Just because they are having a bad one.

Topalov's loss was to Mark Bluvshtein, a young GM who doesn't live in Europe and consequently doesn't play often against top-flight competition. It's not a stretch to suspect he's under-rated.

Also -- play out that game, it's worth seeing how Bluvshtein won.

personally, i wouldn't mind if FIDE had more of a 'season' of matches/tournaments each year, and the top players had to play in so many of them (including some open tournaments) or else they would not be able to be listed in the top rankings.

more specifically, you have to qualify (possibly for your ratings group) by playing in at least x amount of tournaments per year (some open, maybe even some themed). if a player does not compete in enough tournaments, their rating doesn't change (obviously), but it pretty much has an asterisk next to it and their name is not included in the overall rankings since they did not meet the qualifications.

Who is Magnus Carlson

He's that kid modelling in the silly clothing ads. I've heard he moonlights at chess too.

NM reb- I think with Carlsen at least, you have to factor that he isn't actually playing his repertoire. Look at his win vs Vallejo Pons - just simple chess. I am not sure what he was going for with Adams but this experiment with nh5 is almost certainly not part of what he intends to play in a top level tournament.

The reality is that several of the top players are holding back their opening ideas and it ends up costing them. Still I would rather have them there representing than like Anand.

I agree with Reb:

(1) Some of the top players are not playing their rating. Look at Kramnik's miserable performance in Shanghai. Difficult to judge too much from Carlsen as he's been busy beating up lower rated opponents. Topalov and Anand have been MIA since the world championships

(2) Matchplay ratings are a lot less meaningful than tournament ratings yet they get equal weight. Gelfand beat Leko comprehensively in their Hungarian match. It's doubtful he would have such a high score against a selection of 2700+ GMs.

Ratings of elite players are inflated indeed. The main reason for it is that pre-elite guys have to face opponents in Swiss tournaments who are performing better than usually (e.g. a 2700 GM gets to play against a 2500 who is performing at 2700 in this event). On the contrary, in elite round robins the situation is more balanced, one gets to play against some people who perform relatively poorly, and some who are doing well.

That's why it's so hard to make it to the top.

 I agree on Kramnik- but Gelfand has been stringing together great results leading back to the 2009 World Cup.

I look at Adams performance in non elite tournaments - the chicago open this year, the British champ. and it seems to me his rating is accurate.

Likewise Vallejo Pons played in the world open and came out with nearly a 2800 performance rating. Doesn't seem like his Fide is overly inflated.

So if their ratings are accurate, wouldn't Carlsen, Topalov etc be roughly 100 pts stronger?

@Nimzo5. I agree about Gelfand's great results. I'm a big fan of him and agree that he's not the best example (EDIT: but I was struggling to think of another recent match between similarly strong players)... but I still do believe that it would be harder for him to replicate that performance against a selection of players rather than just one.

I think it's open for debate whether Topalov and Kramnik really are 100 points better *at this moment* than Vallejo-Pons et al, who are showing exceptional form. I concede that Carlsen is though!