Vishy Anand Becomes World's Highest Rated Chess Player

A former friend of mine Grandmaster Viswanathan (Vishy) Anand of India will become the highest rated chess player in the world in April 2007, after securing first place in the strongest chess tournament in the world, the XXIV Super Grandmaster tournament in Linares, with a score of 8.5 out of 14 (4 wins, 1 loss, 9 draws for what is typically called a +3 result). The current World #1 chess player Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria had a disastrously bad tournament, ended up tied for last among the eight Super Grandmasters invited to play in this year's edition of Linares.

A super-grandmaster is an international grand master who has achieved a FIDE rating of over 2700 (when I was playing it used to be 2600!) The participants at Linares-Morelia 2007 (a double round-robin tournament with first 7 matches played in Morelia, Mexico and the last 7 rounds played in Linares, Spain) were 6 of the Top 8 rated players in the world: Anand (currently second in the world at 2779), Topalov (currently top rated at 2783), 16-year old Danish sensation Magnus Carlsen (who tied for second place overall was rated 24th in the world at 2690), Alexander Morozevich (Russia, also tied for second, started the tournament ranked 8th in the world rated 2741), Vassily Ivanchuk (Ukraine, ranked 5th in the world at 2750), Peter Leko (Hungary, ranked 6th in the world at 2749), Levon Aronian (Armenia, ranked 6th in the world at 2744) and Peter Svidler (Russia, rated 12th in the world at 2728).

Anand has been the world's second rated player for over a decade, usually behind the Greatest of all Time Garry Kasparov who retired at the top of the rankings after losing to Topalov in his final match at the 2005 Linares Super GM tournament (and still tied for first in that tournament, his last as a professional chess player).

However, after winning Linares (for the second time, he also won it in 1998) Anand will gain 37 rating points to 2816 which will put him far ahead of current World Champion Vladimir Kramnik (Russia, currently ranked 3rd in the world at 2766) and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (Azerbaijan, currently ranked 4th in the world at 2754) while Topalov loses 92 points to fall below 2700 for the first time in years. Wunderkind Carlsen will gain 88 points to likely become the new World #2 at 2778. Morozevich will almost definitely be in the Top 5 after gaining 30 rating points to 2771.

Over 20 years ago, Anand and I were playing in the same tournaments (1986 Oakham Junior Invitational in England, 1985 World Junior Championship in Helsinki, Finland) and being some of the few players of color in those high level tournaments we were friendly with each other.I treasured for years a carved wooden elephant key ring he gave me. Even back then Anand was one of the best players in the world and did not play many more junior tournaments after that.

Anyway, congratulations to Vishy on achieving his lifetime goal of becoming the World's #1 chess player!