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)

Rank Fed Name Rating Old Rank Change Games 1 Carlsen, Magnus 2853 1 0 0 2 Caruana, Fabiano 2823 +10 3 1 9 3 Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime 2811 4 1 0 4 Kramnik, Vladimir 2810 -7 2 -2 9 5 Aronian, Levon 2795 5 0 9 6 So, Wesley 2794 6 0 9 7 Anand, Viswanathan 2779 +3 8 1 9 8 Nakamura, Hikaru 2779 -8 7 -1 9 9 Karjakin, Sergey 2772 9 0 0 10 Harikrishna, P. 2768 +6 12 2 10 11 Giri, Anish 2767 +11 14 3 9 12 Nepomniachtchi, Ian 2767 +18 16 4 9 13 Ding Liren 2764 10 -3 0 14 Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar 2762 11 -3 9 15 Topalov, Veselin 2760 13 -2 0 16 Eljanov, Pavel 2757 +16 21 5 9 17 Dominguez, Leinier 2752 +16 23 6 7 18 Grischuk, Alexander 2751 -1 15 -3 11 19 Adams, Michael 2744 -1 18 -1 9 20 Wojtaszek, Radoslaw 2744 -2 17 -3 3 21 Svidler, Peter 2742 -3 19 -2 20 22 Andreikin, Dmitry 2736 24 2 0 23 Ivanchuk, Vassily 2733 +11 31 8 9 24 Li Chao b 2730 +2 27 3 9 25 Rapport, Richard 2730 +1 26 1 7 26 Navara, David 2725 -12 22 -4 8 27 Wang Yue 2723 29 2 0 28 Tomashevsky, Evgeny 2722 -2 28 0 20 29 Yu Yangyi 2721 32 3 0 30 Gelfand, Boris 2720 -23 20 -10 9

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)

Rank Fed Name Rating Games B-Year 1 Ding Liren 2875 0 1992 2 Carlsen, Magnus 2873 0 1990 3 Artemiev, Vladislav 2850 36 1998 4 Nakamura, Hikaru 2842 0 1987 5 Aronian, Levon 2830 0 1982 6 Nepomniachtchi, Ian 2830 0 1990 7 Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime 2823 0 1990 8 Shkuro, Iuri 2814 0 1982 9 Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar 2813 0 1985 10 Caruana, Fabiano 2800 0 1992 11 Karjakin, Sergey 2800 0 1990 12 Svidler, Peter 2797 0 1976 13 So, Wesley 2791 0 1993 14 Dominguez Perez, Leinier 2783 0 1983 15 Giri, Anish 2776 0 1994 16 Mamedov, Rauf 2770 0 1988 17 Wang Hao 2768 0 1989 18 Grischuk, Alexander 2761 0 1983 19 Amonatov, Farrukh 2759 0 1978 20 Harikrishna, Pentala 2759 0 1986 21 Tomashevsky, Evgeny 2756 0 1987 22 Anand, Viswanathan 2754 0 1969 23 Ivanchuk, Vassily 2754 0 1969 24 Navara, David 2754 0 1985 25 Jobava, Baadur 2752 0 1983 26 Le, Quang Liem 2747 0 1991 27 Gelfand, Boris 2745 0 1968 28 Ponomariov, Ruslan 2743 0 1983 29 Bortnyk, Olexandr 2741 0 1996 30 Onischuk, Vladimir 2740 0 1991

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)

Rank Fed Name Title Rating Games B-Year 1 Hou Yifan g 2635 14 1994 2 Ju Wenjun g 2580 0 1991 3 Muzychuk, Anna g 2561 0 1990 4 Koneru, Humpy g 2557 0 1987 5 Kosteniuk, Alexandra g 2555 13 1984 6 Harika, Dronavalli g 2543 9 1991 7 Cmilyte, Viktorija g 2538 0 1983 8 Muzychuk, Mariya g 2532 0 1992 9 Lagno, Kateryna g 2530 0 1989 10 Gunina, Valentina g 2525 11 1989 11 Stefanova, Antoaneta g 2512 0 1979 12 Zhao Xue g 2508 0 1985 13 Dzagnidze, Nana g 2507 0 1987 14 Pogonina, Natalija wg 2492 11 1985 15 Tan Zhongyi wg 2492 0 1991 16 Batsiashvili, Nino m 2489 9 1987 17 Sebag, Marie g 2488 0 1986 18 Kosintseva, Nadezhda g 2483 0 1985 19 Shen Yang m 2479 0 1989 20 Paehtz, Elisabeth m 2474 9 1985 21 Lei Tingjie wg 2473 0 1997 22 Bodnaruk, Anastasia m 2470 11 1992 23 Hoang, Thanh Trang g 2470 0 1980 24 Cramling, Pia g 2461 5 1963 25 Javakhishvili, Lela m 2461 0 1984 26 Skripchenko, Almira m 2455 2 1976 27 Ushenina, Anna g 2453 9 1985 28 Goryachkina, Aleksandra wg 2452 11 1998 29 Kashlinskaya, Alina m 2450 20 1993 30 Girya, Olga wg 2450 11 1991

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.

Chess.com Live Chess | Blitz, 1 November 2016 (Top 20) # Title Name Rating 1/0/= 1 GM MagnusCarlsen 2965 24/9/8 2 GM Hikaru 2874 2694/289/207 3 GM chesspanda123 2838 380/173/71 4 GM mishkar83 2824 370/130/63 5 GM EltajSafarli 2822 56/18/17 6 GM Grischuk 2816 7/9/8 7 GM LevonAronian 2807 4/3/4 8 GM Duhless 2794 92/34/8 9 GM Oleksandr_Bortnyk 2793 64/28/12 10 IM Sophiste2 2790 85/31/11 11 GM gmwesley_so 2775 119/55/33 12 GM MichaelRoiz 2758 653/300/162 13 GM LexySexy 2758 50/8/9 14 GM howitzer14 2754 638/229/99 15 GM tomcruise999 2747 110/36/7 16 GM Tamirn 2746 3354/609/221 17 GM LiemLe 2737 448/229/76 18 GM erwinlami 2726 196/80/37 19 GM DanielNaroditsky 2723 414 95 46 20 GM Azzaro25 2709 16/3/2

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!