March 2012 FIDE Rating List

FIDE have published the official March 2012 rating list, confirming Magnus Carlsen as the world #1 with an unchanged rating of 2835 Elo.

Levon Aronian improved his rating, but not his ranking. He consolidated his #2 spot, halving the gap to Carlsen from 30 points to just 15.

Vladimir Kramnik and Vishy Anand were inactive during the 2 months since the January list, remaining at #3 and #4 respectively.

With Teimour Radjabov strengthening his #5 ranking by gaining 11 rating points, the first change comes at #6 where Hikaru Nakamura re-enters the top 10, equalling his previous highest ranking in July 2011.

But the biggest news is the arrival in the top 10 of Fabiano Caruana. Thanks in no small part to his excellent performance at Tata Steel in January, he climbs fully ten places to claim the #7 ranking.

Fabiano Caruana (left) playing Magnus Carlsen at Tata Steel (game drawn)

Sergey Karjakin slips one place to #8, Alexander Morozevich stays at #9, and Vassily Ivanchuk drops two places to #10.

Judit Polgar suffered a shock defeat to Hou Yifan during the Gibraltar Masters, but she keeps her #1 ranking on the women's list with 2709 Elo.

Hou's fantastic result in Gibraltar pushes her up a huge 34 points to 2639 Elo.  If Hou can repeat her Gibraltar form on a regular basis, then Polgar's two decades of dominating the women's rankings could be facing a real challenge.

Fabiano Caruana's meteoric rise puts 50 Elo points between him and the #2 junior Anish Giri. Giri achieved a real breakthrough to win in Reggio Emilia, but a disastrous Tata Steel result left his ranking almost unchanged.

The top 100 rankings:

The top 100 women's rankings:

The top 20 junior rankings.