November FIDE Ratings: Carlsen-Karjakin Is #1 vs #9

The 2016 World Championship match will be played between the world number-one and the world number-nine. The November FIDE rating list has Magnus Carlsen on top with an Elo of 2853, whereas Sergey Karjakin is just inside the top 10, with 2772.

Now that the official FIDE ratings are there, we know the mathematical situation for the upcoming title match. With a rating difference of 81 points, Carlsen's expected score is 61.4% against 38.6% for Karjakin.

Update: this is the percentage dictated by the Elo system for the first individual game. Carlsen's winning chance will likely be higher while the match progresses.

But what are these numbers worth? In May 2012, the match between Vishy Anand (the world number-four at the time with 2791) and Boris Gelfand (2727 back then) ended in 6-6. 

Back to the most recent rating list where Carlsen's lead has shrunk to just 30 points. Fabiano Caruana has returned to the number-two spot with a rating of 2823 after winning 10.4 points in Isle of Man. 

The difference between Carlsen and the number two in the list hasn't been this small since November 2014. Back then Caruana was also the number two. Thanks to his huge score at the Sinquefield Cup that year, his rating was as high as 2839, 24 points below Carlsen's 2863. 

Caruana is just 30 points behind Carlsen.

Vladimir Kramnik dropped to fourth place (losing 6.7 points in the Tal Memorial), behind Caruana and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (third, without rated games).

Pentala Harikrishna's 10th place is historic: He became only the second Indian grandmaster to ever enter the top 10 in the world. The highest jump in the top 100 was made by Alexander Riazantzev who gained 20.40 Elo points with his victory in the Russian Superfinal. He went from #102 to #75 in the world.

It was a bad month for Boris Gelfand, who lost 23 points in the Tal Memorial. He is now the #30 in the world. Baskaran Adhiban also dropped 23 points, in the Spanish Team Championship and Millionaire Chess, and went from #51 to #81. Wang Hao, who played badly in Isle of Man, dropped from #41 to #62.

November 2016 FIDE Ratings (Top 30)

There aren't enough changes to discuss the rapid list separately.

The last time we discussed ratings here at Chess.com, the main story was that Chinese GM Ding Liren had taken over the #1 position in the blitz. Little has changed in this list, and that includes the presence of Iuri Shkuro of Ukraine in the top 10. His rating is somewhat dodgy (as discussed in July), but he's still up there.

The biggest change is that there's a new number three: Vladislav Artemiev. Two blitz events in Russia were rated for the November list, and the young Russian player won no less than 65.74 points to reach 2850.

Vladislav Artemiev, the world #3 in blitz. | Photo Armenian Chess Academy.

November 2016 FIDE Blitz Ratings (Top 30)

Hou Yifan's October month wasn't great. She played 14 rated games and lost one rating point per game on average to drop from 2649 to 2635. With a 55-point gap over her compatriot Ju Wenjun, Hou's dominance is still bigger than Carlsen's among the men. It should be noted that the sixth game of her match against Nigel Short, which led to some controversy, wasn't rated after all.

Alexandra Kosteniuk did well, winning 17.5 points at the Swiss Team Championship and, of course, the Russian Superfinal. Harika Dronavalli gained 15.4 points at the Chess.com Isle of Man tournament where Elisabeth Paehtz also won 14.6 points.

November 2016 FIDE Women Ratings (Top 30)

All lists courtesy of FIDE.

Chess.com Blitz and Bullet

As always, we'll also look at how things are on our own site. Especially now that the Grandmaster Blitz Battle Championship has finished, it makes sense to look at the new blitz and bullet ratings on Chess.com.

Magnus Carlsen's first Blitz Battle, which he won convincingly against Tigran Petrosian, wasn't enough yet to grab the first place. However, after beating both Alexander Grischuk and Hikaru Nakamura, the world champion now tops our blitz list with a 2965 rating. That's 91 points more than Nakamura, who has dropped considerably from what was a beautiful 3000 rating back in July.

We find two other Blitz Battle participants in sixth and seventh place: Alexander Grischuk and Levon Aronian. The highest non-GM is IM Sophiste2, who hasn't disclosed his or her name.

Also in the bullet list, Carlsen is the number one. That is based on the 33 bullet games he has played this year on our site, which got him to a 3207 rating. Nakamura is the number two with 3155. This is also a bit lower than in July when he had 3203.

These two speed demons, who played the Blitz Battle final last Thursday, are in a class of their own when it comes to bullet. (Naka won this part of the battle 5-4, by the way.) The third on the list is Le Quang Liem, and the other players are all pretty close, but the gap between Le and Nakamura is 151 points.

The player in 10th place is the first non-GM and in fact doesn't have a title at all: blitzPHENOM. That's a pretty good name, but bulletPHENOM would have been even more to the point!