In January 2017, Magnus Carlsen tops the FIDE rating list, like he has done since July 2011. His lead over #2, Fabiano Caruana, however is only 13 points.

A new year is here, and so is a new FIDE rating list. Carlsen's lead in classical chess is no surprise, but his dominance has shrunk even further. Caruana gained four points with games in the Bundesliga and the London Chess Classic and is now only 13 points behind the Norwegian.

Carlsen's lead hasn't been this small since September 2011.

Wesley So won the London Chess Classic, and with it the Grand Chess Tour. He gained 14 points and became a member of the 2800 club for the first time. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave used to be part of that club, but he dropped out in this list.

Wesley So, a member of the 2800 club now.

Besides this, the top 100 doesn't see too many big changes. Ernesto Inarkiev re-entered the top 30 after a 14-point gain in the German and Chinese leagues. Richard Rapport lost 15 points and dropped from #30 to #40 with games played in different events in China.

January 2017 FIDE Ratings (Top 30)

Rank Fed Name Rating Old Rank Games 1 Carlsen, Magnus 2840 1 0 2 Caruana, Fabiano 2827 +4 2 11 3 Kramnik, Vladimir 2811 +2 3 9 4 So, Wesley 2808 +14 5 9 5 Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime 2796 -8 4 11 6 Anand, Viswanathan 2786 +7 8 11 7 Nakamura, Hikaru 2785 +6 9 9 8 Karjakin, Sergey 2785 6 0 9 Aronian, Levon 2780 -5 7 9 10 Giri, Anish 2773 +2 10 9 11 Nepomniachtchi, Ian 2767 13 0 12 Harikrishna, P. 2766 -4 11 2 13 Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar 2766 -2 12 2 14 Ding Liren 2760 +3 16 4 15 Eljanov, Pavel 2755 -7 14 4 16 Ivanchuk, Vassily 2752 +5 20 2 17 Adams, Michael 2751 +3 19 11 18 Wojtaszek, Radoslaw 2750 +1 18 6 19 Svidler, Peter 2748 -5 17 4 20 Grischuk, Alexander 2742 +5 23 1 21 Topalov, Veselin 2739 -21 15 9 22 Dominguez Perez, Leinier 2739 21 0 23 Yu Yangyi 2738 +9 24 13 24 Andreikin, Dmitry 2736 -1 22 4 25 Navara, David 2735 +10 26 4 26 Vitiugov, Nikita 2724 -2 25 2 27 Inarkiev, Ernesto 2723 +14 36 6 28 Gelfand, Boris 2721 -4 27 4 29 Li Chao b 2720 28 0 30 Le, Quang Liem 2718 29 0

(See full list here.)

With the World Rapid and Blitz Championships in Qatar just behind us, obviously we should have a close look at these lists as well. Starting with the rapid, we see a new number two. Vassily Ivanchuk won the championship and gained 56 rapid Elo points, jumping from #11 to #2. Carlsen is still #1, but he did drop below 2900.

Vassily Ivanchuk, the new #2 in rapid chess.

Sergey Karjakin was the world #4 in rapid but dropped out of the top 10. Hikaru Nakamura was the old #2, but due to Qatar, he dropped to #10. Alexander Grischuk jumped from #14 to #4.

January 2017 FIDE Rapid Ratings (Top 30)

Rank Fed Name Rating Games B-Year 1 Carlsen, Magnus 2896 15 1990 2 Ivanchuk, Vassily 2827 15 1969 3 Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar 2825 15 1985 4 Grischuk, Alexander 2822 15 1983 5 Nepomniachtchi, Ian 2819 15 1990 6 Dominguez Perez, Leinier 2803 15 1983 7 Kramnik, Vladimir 2798 5 1975 8 Aronian, Levon 2797 15 1982 9 Yu Yangyi 2791 22 1994 10 Nakamura, Hikaru 2790 15 1987 11 Anand, Viswanathan 2789 15 1969 12 Karjakin, Sergey 2773 15 1990 13 Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime 2770 15 1990 14 Wang Hao 2763 0 1989 15 Le, Quang Liem 2761 0 1991 16 So, Wesley 2759 0 1993 17 Gelfand, Boris 2755 8 1968 18 Caruana, Fabiano 2752 0 1992 19 Korobov, Anton 2750 15 1985 20 Giri, Anish 2750 0 1994

(See full list here.)

You might remember that Ding Liren was the surprising leader of the blitz rating list, but that is no more. The two participants of the 2016 classical world championship now also have the highest Elo in blitz.

Carlsen leads with 2914. Not winning any gold in Doha was disappointing for Carlsen, but at least he's now leading all three Elo lists.

Carlsen is the #1 in all three FIDE rating lists.

Karjakin, the fresh world blitz champion, follows at 2883. He was on spot #12 in the previous list.

Three more blitz specialists, who are also regular participants of Chess.com's Titled Tuesday, can be found right behind Ding Liren: Nakamura, MVL and Dmitry Andreikin. Let's leave it at that; the story of Iuri Shkuro has been dealt with earlier.

January 2017 FIDE Blitz Ratings (Top 30)

Rank Fed Name Rating Games B-Year 1 Carlsen, Magnus 2914 21 1990 2 Karjakin, Sergey 2883 21 1990 3 Ding Liren 2875 0 1992 4 Nakamura, Hikaru 2851 21 1987 5 Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime 2825 21 1990 6 Andreikin, Dmitry 2815 26 1990 7 Shkuro, Iuri 2814 0 1982 8 Grischuk, Alexander 2813 21 1983 9 Dubov, Daniil 2804 21 1996 10 Caruana, Fabiano 2800 0 1992 11 Svidler, Peter 2797 0 1976 12 Dominguez Perez, Leinier 2796 21 1983 13 Nepomniachtchi, Ian 2793 21 1990 14 So, Wesley 2791 0 1993 15 Artemiev, Vladislav 2777 21 1998 16 Giri, Anish 2776 0 1994 17 Ivanchuk, Vassily 2768 21 1969 18 Wang Hao 2768 0 1989 19 Anand, Viswanathan 2766 21 1969 20 Mamedov, Rauf 2765 47 1988

(See full list here.)

The classical women's rating list has hardly changed, but with 36 ladies playing in Doha it makes sense to check out the rapid and blitz lists as well. Anna Muzychuk not only won both tournaments in Qatar, but with them, she took over the #1 position from Hou Yifan in both lists!

Here's the rapid top 10, where Muzychuk earned her #1 spot because she had played more rated games.

January 2017 FIDE Rapid Ratings (Women, Top 10)

Rank Fed Name Title Rating Games B-Year 1 Muzychuk, Anna GM 2611 12 1990 2 Hou Yifan GM 2611 5 1994 3 Lagno, Kateryna GM 2577 12 1989 4 Gunina, Valentina GM 2568 22 1989 5 Dzagnidze, Nana GM 2556 12 1987 6 Kosteniuk, Alexandra GM 2548 23 1984 7 Ju Wenjun GM 2543 12 1991 8 Stefanova, Antoaneta GM 2534 12 1979 9 Muzychuk, Mariya GM 2498 0 1992 10 Khotenashvili, Bela GM 2487 0 1988

(See full list here.)

Anna Muzychuk tops both the rapid and blitz rating list.

In the blitz, Muzychuk now has a four-point lead over Hou. There's one more player above 2600: Kateryna Lagno. Two players are ranked clearly higher than in classical chess: Tan Zhongyi and Anastasia Bodnaruk.

January 2017 FIDE Blitz Ratings (Women, Top 10)

Rank Fed Name Title Rating Games B-Year 1 Muzychuk, Anna GM 2663 17 1990 2 Hou Yifan GM 2659 9 1994 3 Lagno, Kateryna GM 2643 17 1989 4 Gunina, Valentina GM 2595 28 1989 5 Tan Zhongyi WGM 2562 17 1991 6 Ju Wenjun GM 2548 17 1991 7 Stefanova, Antoaneta GM 2540 17 1979 8 Harika, Dronavalli GM 2535 17 1991 9 Bodnaruk, Anastasia IM 2530 0 1992 10 Koneru, Humpy GM 2499 17 1987

All lists courtesy of FIDE.

Chess.com Blitz and Bullet

As always, we'll also look at how things are on our own site. Let's check out the new blitz and bullet ratings on Chess.com—two more lists topped by Carlsen.

Also on our site, the Norwegian is the highest-rated player in both blitz and bullet. He reached his blitz rating of 2965 in the GM Blitz Battle Championship.

The big news here is that Nakamura is not second anymore, and he's not third either. GMHikaru has dropped to fourth place, behind Jahongir Vakhidov of Uzbekistan and a strong Chinese player who remains anonymous on our site.

Chess.com Live Chess | Blitz, 5 January 2017 (Top 20) # Title Name Rating 1/0/= 1 GM MagnusCarlsen 2965 24/9/8 2 GM uzbektiger95 2850 299/179/71 3 GM chesspanda123 2838 380/173/71 4 GM Hikaru 2825 2860/326/222 5 GM mishkar83 2824 370/130/63 6 GM EltajSafarli 2822 56/18/17 7 GM Grischuk 2816 7/9/8 8 GM LevonAronian 2807 4/3/4 9 GM Zaven_Andriasyan 2807 28/3/10 10 IM Sophiste2 2790 85/31/11 11 GM Duhless 2775 92/35/8 12 GM howitzer14 2774 648/230/106 13 GM gmwesley_so 2759 154/73/42 14 GM LexySexy 2758 50/8/9 15 GM LiemLe 2755 267/114/61 16 GM MichaelRoiz 2753 925/441/231 17 GM Evgeny_Levin 2748 75/25/22 18 GM tomcruise999 2747 110/36/7 19 GM Tamirn 2746 3354/609/221 20 GM 2Vladimirovich90 2744 246/58/50

(See full list here.)

The bullet list sees an interesting situation. Carlsen hasn't returned to play bullet on our site, but his 3207 rating from the GM Blitz Battle has now been exactly leveled by Nakamura! On the FIDE list, the American player would be first as he is more active. Our site lists them alphabetically, but we're considering to follow FIDE here in the future.

Behind Andreikin, a less familiar name is Oleksandr Bortnyk, in fourth place. He had decent results at the World Rapid and Blitz, and in the latter one score stood out: He beat the reigning champ, Alexander Grischuk.