Post Sinquefield (Live) Ratings: Nakamura World #2, Aronian #7

“Levon Aronian is back,” was a much-heard phrase after the Armenian GM won the Sinquefield Cup. Back in the top 10 that is — he is the new world number seven. Hikaru Nakamura climbed to the number two spot with a new personal high of 2816.2 in the live ratings.

With the Sinquefield Cup ending a day after the FIDE September 1 rating list came out, it makes more sense to look at the live ratings when discussing the top players. Seven of the top 10 players participated!

Thanks to his last-round win against Grischuk, Hikaru Nakamura ended up winning 2.2 rating points in St. Louis. This makes him the new world number two, also because Veselin Topalov and Viswanathan Anand lost points: 2.9 and 12.9 respectively.

Anish Giri won his first game and then drew the next eight. The Dutch GM is still undefeated in the Grand Chess Tour and is now the world number five, just 1.9 points shy of a 2800 rating. He swapped places with Fabiano Caruana, who lost 11.9 points. 

Giri's only win was against the best opponent possible: Alexander Grischuk. The two are fighting for one of the rating spots in the next Candidates’ Tournament.

Updated Race to FIDE candidates after #SinquefieldCup. Giri ahead of Grischuk by 6.4 Elo. http://t.co/Tgv0iFD7jI

— Martin Bennedik (@bennedik) September 2, 2015

Next is Levon Aronian, the glorious winner of the tournament and a whopping 19.1 rating points. That's a lot for nine games at this level! He surpassed Alexander Grischuk, Vladimir Kramnik and Ding Liren.

The Chinese GM has had a great summer. He collected 10.1 points during his match with Boris Gelfand, and added another 22.8(!) in the Chinese league. The last time a Chinese player was in the top 10 was in November 2010, when Wang Yue was 10th at 2756.

Wesley So lost 12.9 points and dropped out of the top 10. He is now 12th, just one spot ahead of Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, who won 14 points. 

The current top 30, courtesy of 2700chess.

For the women's list we can simply look at the FIDE data. The biggest change on that list doesn't involve winning or losing points. No, we've lost a full name! After 12 months of inactivity, Judit Polgar has disappeared from the rating list.

Worthy of a true legend, Polgar left the “rated chess world“ as the world number one: Hou Yifan had dropped to second place in the August 1 list after losing 4.8 points in Dortmund.

The ex-world champion is now the clear number one, 93 points ahead of number two Humpy Koneru of India. That's a gap more than twice as big as Carlsen's lead over Nakamura. 

September 2015 FIDE Rating List (Women) | Top 30

All data courtesy of FIDE.

Chess.com Blitz and Bullet

With the 13th Titled Tuesday just over, it also makes sense to look at the Chess.com ratings. As always, the blitz and bullet lists will be covered.

GM Hikaru Nakamura still has a commanding lead in the blitz section. Compared to the last time we looked (June 1), he increased the gap by 47 points! The number one is 117 points ahead of number two GM Baadur Jobava, who didn't play rated games.

There's a new name on the third spot, a name that wasn't even in the top 20 last time: GM Erwin l'Ami. The Dutchman is three points ahead of GM Dmitry Andreikin, who participated in the September Titled Tuesday.

GM Tal Baron won the August Titled Tuesday and is now 11th on the list. And we welcome the very strong Chinese GM Yu Yangyi (we're in the process of verifying him so he's still listed without a title) who recently started playing on Chess.com and is already the #13 player.

Chess.com Live Chess | Blitz,  September 2, 2015 (Top 20)

Also on the bullet list it is Nakamura who tops the standings by a big margin. He played 71 bullet games since June 1, and added precisely one rating point to his impressive rating since.

The gap with the number two is a bit smaller though: whereas we could find GM Dmitry Andreikin at 2835 three months ago, it is now GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave as the best of the rest, with 2852.

Big names follow on this list, but they haven't played recently: GM Wesley So and GM Le Quang Liem. The next player on the list, FM Minh Le, is very active on the site but has dropped from number three to seven. 

Chess.com Live Chess | Bullet, September 2, 2015 (Top 20)