July FIDE Ratings: Guess Who Is The New Blitz #1

In the July FIDE ratings, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave is the new #4 player in the world. That's the highest place he has achieved so far. Meanwhile, the blitz ratings have a surprising new #1.

Now that a lots of top events are behind us, and the first half of 2016 is history, let's review the new ratings! And let's start, for a change, with blitz.

Do you know who is the world's top-rated player for blitz? If you guessed Magnus Carlsen or Hikaru Nakamura, you're wrong. It's... Ding Liren of China! How did that happen?

Well, Ding didn't need to play any chess to claim the top spot. The number of blitz games he played in the last month is zero. Instead, the previous leader, Magnus Carlsen, lost ground. The Norwegian star had been sitting on a gigantic 2915 rating for a while, but he couldn't maintain it during the Grand Chess Tour events in Paris and Leuven. 

Over a total of 36 blitz games, Carlsen, who finished second in Paris and first in Leuven, lost 42 points. He is now at 2873, two points behind the Chinese grandmaster. Hikaru Nakamura also lost points. He went from 2883 to 2842.

Ding Liren, the new number one in FIDE's blitz ratings!

July 2016 FIDE Ratings | Blitz, Top 20

(Courtesy of FIDE; full list here.)

A surprising name on this list is Iuri Shkuro of Ukraine, currently on #7. His name has been in the blitz top 10 for a while; he went from 2525 in November 2014 to 2765 in June 2015. He won dozens of points in each list and eventually raised his rating to 2814. With a classical rating of 2566, that's quite impressive. How is this possible?

As it turns out, the events where Mr. Shkuro won his points have a lot of similarities. They were all held in Ukraine, and each time he played against (much) lower rated opponents. He gained points by getting a huge score, while possessing a K factor of 20.

Another Ukrainian grandmaster, Yuri Vovk, complained about this situation on Facebook in February of this year. Among the people discussing are GM Emil Sutovsky and our own IM Danny Rensch.

Let's turn our attention to the classical ratings. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave has reached a career high position. The Frenchman is now the world #4 after winning nine points at the French Team Championship. MVL switched places with Levon Aronian who, by the way, jumped from #12 to #5 in the blitz ratings.

Shakhriyar Mamedyarov's win in Shamkir was calculated for this list along with some games in the Chinese league. The Azerbaijani won 18 points and moved up from #18 to #12. It was also a good month for Richard Rapport who climbed from #25 to #17 and married Serbian WGM Jovana Vojinovic.

July 2016 FIDE Ratings | Classical, Top 50

(Courtesy of FIDE; full list here.)

The rapid rating list hardly saw any changes except for #1 Carlsen increasing his lead over #2 Nakamura by a bit, so we're moving on to the classical ratings list for women. There, we have a new #2.

Ju Wenjun of China played 12 rated games for this list. At the Chicago Open, she won 14.1 points, and in the Chinese league she won 5.2 points. She is now three points ahead of India's Humpy Koneru. The last time Koneru was not second behind Hou, or third behind Polgar/Hou, was in November 2014. Ju was also ahead of Koneru then.

Ju Wenjun, the new number-two female chess player | Photo courtesy of FIDE.

July 2016 FIDE Women Ratings | Classical, Top 50

(Courtesy of FIDE; full list here.)

Chess.com Blitz and Bullet

Finally, let's look at how things are on our own site. Last time we discussed, GM Hikaru (Hikaru Nakamura) had dropped back a bit. After breaking the 2900 barrier, he went to 2875 back in April. This month he's back with a vengeance! The U.S. grandmaster reached a beautiful new blitz rating of 3000, and is 120 points ahead of a new name on our site.

We're talking about a certain GM MagnusCarlsen, who entered our lists due to his participation in the Grandmaster Blitz Battle Championship. After his 14 blitz games with GM TigranLPetrosyan, he is now at 2880.

There's also a new name ahead of our #4, GM LyonBeast (Maxime Vachier-Lagrave). The new #3 is GM chesspanda123, who did not disclose his name but is a member of the Olympic-gold-winning Chinese team!

There are two untitled players in the top 20, but the GM title still needs to be verified for vartemiev who is almost certainly Vladislav Artemiev. Member slavenov is either a real blitz expert or a top GM who didn't bother to send us his credentials!

Carlsen's eight wins the bullet part of his match with Petrosian got him to the number one spot on our site. His rating of 3275 is extremely provisional, of course, but it was enough to have Nakamura salivating at the thought of a worthy foe with a nice supply of rating points!

Nakamura is busy getting closer and has broken 3200 as well. The distance between Nakamura and the #3, GM ArabicFalcon, is a staggering 245 points. Bullet specialist IM wonderfultime (Minh Le) has dropped back to ninth place and isn't even the highest rated non-GM anymore. That's IM vellottiwizzard (Luke Vellotti).