Anand Retains No.1 Place, Humpy Adds 19 Elo
By Arvind Aaron

World champion Viswanathan Anand retained the No.1 rank in the World in the latest July 2008 FIDE Rating List published by FIDE on July 1. When the Foros Tournament is rated, Magnus Carlsen is expected to climb to the second place. Alexander Morozevich replaced
Vladimir Kramnik as the second highest rated player.

Anand's lead over the rest is 10 Elo. The Chennai-born NIIT Brand Ambassador played just two rated games in this period from the German league and lost 4.90 Elo. He drew Radoslav Wojtaszek of Poland and and also drew Luke McShane of England, both in the Bundesliga. His team, Baden Baden importantly won the title.

Among Women, Koneru Humpy widened her lead over others playing in women's events by reaching 2622. Judit Polgar of Hungary who exclusively plays in men's events is ranked No.1 on 2711. Humpy from ONGC, Vijayawada added 19 Elo points in the three-month period.

Our national champion Surya S Ganguly of Indian Oil, Kolkata darted into the world top for the first time. He tied for the 99-103 places with the same rating of 2631 but Ganguly is ranked 103 in the world as he played the fewest games in the last quarter of the year. His big win in the Sydney International Open in March gave him 12.40 Elo and pushed him to this place.

The top ten in the World on rankings are: 1 V. Anand (Ind) 2798, 2 A. Morozevich (Rus) 2788, 3 V. Kramnik (Rus) 2788, 4 V. Ivanchuk (Ukr) 2781, 5 V. Topalov (Bul) 2777, 6 Magnus Carlsen (Nor) 2775, 7 T. Radjabov (Aze) 2744, 8 S. Mamedyarov (Aze) 2742, 9 A. Shirov (Esp) 2741, 10 Peter Leko (Hun) 2741, 28 K. Sasikiran (Ind) 2684, 53 P.Harikrishna (Ind) 2668, 99-103 Surya S Ganguly (Ind) 2631.

The World Top in women: 1. Judit Polgar (Hun) 2711, 2 Koneru Humpy (Ind) 2622, 3 Xie Jun (Chn) 2574, 4 Hou Yifan (Chn) 2557, 5 A. Stefanova (Bul) 2550, 32 D. Harika (Ind) 2461, 42 Tania Sachdev (Ind) 2432.

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