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9/1/2018 – September is here, and as the month kicks off we check in with the FIDE rating lists to see how a busy (northern) summer season has shaken thinks up Elo-wise. Magnus Carlsen's top spot in both classical and blitz was briefly threatened, but he remains the king of all formats. | Photo: Grand Chess Tour / Lennart Ootes

Grand Chess Tour impact

The tournaments in St. Louis saw most of the world's best in action in all three rating categories last month. We'll take a look at how the Saint Louis Rapid and Blitz and the Sinquefield Cup affected the world elite.

But the Biel Chess Festival — which ended on August 1st — also counts, meaning that Magnus Carlsen, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave all had an unusually large number of classical games rated — 19 on the month. Mamedyarov was by far the largest beneficiary of this activity.

Mamedyarov gained the most amongst players in the top 50 | Photo: Biel Chess Festival / Lennart Ootes

Top 100 players

There was the possibility that, if the cards fell just right, Fabiano Caruana could have overtaken Magnus Carlsen in the number one spot, but in the end, the top four by rating remains unchanged.

China's Ding Liren nudged up 7 points to crack 2800 for the first time. After recovering from his June hip injury, he won a four game match against Veselin Topalov that was overshadowed by events in the USA. Ding beat Topalov 3:1 in his home city of Wenzhou. [Photo: cca.imsa.cn]

Levon Aronian is back in the top ten for the first time since the March Candidates tournament.

We discussed Igor Rausis' rise to number 100 at some length in last month's update. His 2651 remains the number to beat for players aspiring to the Top 100 today.

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Mamedyarov was a big winner in August as his victory in Biel kicked in, netting 19 Elo points, although his world rank remains unchanged.

Nakamura and Karjakin declined in parallel after lacklustre performances in St. Louis at the Sinquefield Cup — both in terms of rating points and world rankings.

The 25th Abu Dhabi Masters was kind to Daniil Dubov, whose 7½/9 score allowed him to shoot up over 2700 for only the second time, and into the top 40. Sanan Sjugirov was the biggest loser, shedding 23 points in his nine games in Abu Dhabi to crash from number 63 to 93 in the world. A tough break considering he still scored 5/9 (or "plus one") for the tournament.

FIDE Top 100 Women

There were relatively modest changes to the Women's Top 100 this month. Alexandra Kosteniuk took over the number three spot from Anna Muzychuk after the latter dropped 9 Elo points. Elisabeth Paehtz gained another 13 points to enter the top ten.

A quick glance at the country column illustrates why we can expect the battle in Batumi at the Chess Olympiad to once again be between Russia, Ukraine and China (weakened by the absence of Hou Yifan).

FIDE Top 100 Juniors

Few changes to the Junior top 10 heading into the World Junior Championship next week in Turkey, where ChessBase will have extensive coverage by IM Sagar Shah. Iranian Parham Maghsoodloo continues to trend upward, now taking over the number five spot from Sam Sevian, thanks in part to a strong Asian Nations Cup score.

Alexey Sarana, who's doing well in the Russian Championship, gained 21 points — at 2634 his career-best rating — to enter the top ten.

Also notable is Nihal Sarin, whose "m" in the title column will soon be replaced by a "g" after he recently qualified for the GM title. He moved up six spots to number 25 and is the youngest member of the top 30.

FIDE Top 100 Girls

Stavroula Tsolakidou took a break from her upward trend in August, dropping 25 points from the Kavala Open in Greece.

Keep an eye on the next generation from China, led by Jiner Zhu, who gained 24 Elo points this month, moving up to number eleven.

Top 100 Rapid

Nine rapid games in the Saint Louis Rapid and Blitz (plus two more for the Caruana-So playoff in the Sinquefield Cup) was very good for Fabiano Caruana, who rose from number 26 to number 9 on a gain of 51 points, and correspondingly disastrous for Wesley So who gave back 44 points, and drops to number 5 in the world. Nakamura also fared well in rapid, climbing 20 points to the second spot behind Carlsen. That puts three Americans in the top ten in rapid for the first time.

Nakamura won the Saint Louis Rapid and Blitz | Photo: Saint Louis Chess Club / Austin Fuller

Top 100 Blitz

Maxime Vachier-Lagrave rocketed up 59 Elo points in blitz portion of St. Louis and is now neck-and-neck with Carlsen, the closest the Norwegian has come to losing his number one status there.

Anand slipped out of the top ten, and Garry Kasparov became inactive a year after his return to the board in the same event in 2017. He'll be back in action in the (unrated) Chess960 exhibition in a couple of weeks time.

On the losing side, Vladimir Fedoseev was among the most active with 20 blitz games, but his rating got hammered as he fell back 60 points from number 5 in the world to number 21.

Source: FIDE

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