World's Top 20 Players

As of Jan 1, 2011, the world's top 20 players according to FIDE rating are:


 1 Carlsen, Magnus  
 2 Anand, Viswanathan
 3 Aronian, Levon
 4 Kramnik, Vladimir
 5 Karjakin, Sergey
 6 Topalov, Veselin
 7 Grischuk, Alexander
 8 Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar
 9 Ivanchuk, Vassily
 10 Nakamura, Hikaru
 11 Ponomariov, Ruslan
 12 Radjabov, Teimour
 13 Gashimov, Vugar
 14 Wang, Yue
 15 Nepomniachtchi, Ian
 16 Gelfand, Boris
 17 Wang, Hao
 18 Svidler, Peter
 19 Kamsky, Gata
 20 Wojtaszek, Radoslaw

Carlsen remains at the top.  Other notable players: Anand went from 3rd to 2nd, Kramnik went from 5th to 4th, Topalov dropped 2nd to 6th since my last post of World Rankings.

Improve Your Rating by 400 Points

While this statement is aimed at chess players rated at about 1400 (USCF), the idea can be used by most chess players to improve their rating. Once again, I want to beat my drum about studying chess puzzles to improve your chess strength. Why?

As Michael de la Maza of www.Chesscafe.com states in his article "400 points in 400 days" (Part 1  Part 2), and his observation is backup by GM Jonathan Levitt and GM Nigel Davies,

"Chess knowledge is not the same as chess ability...and a player's chess ability is limited first and foremost by a lack of tactical ability."

And how does Michael recommend that you improve your chess ability?  Doing Chess puzzles and in his articles he recommends a study plan that he developed.

World's Top 10 Players

World's Top 10 Rated Players (updated August 29, 2010)
Rank Name            Rating
01     Carlsen        2826
02     Topalov        2803
03     Anand        2800
04     Aronian        2783
05     Kramnik        2780
06     Eljanov        2760
07     Grischuk        2760
08     Mamedyarov 2755
09     Ivanchuk        2754
10     Gelfand        2750

Mega Chess Book Database

Here is a link to DB Books (a mega chess book database).  It must contain hundreds of chess books.

Links to Chess Tactics Books

In studying tactics (videos and blog), I recommend 2 books.  Here are links so you don't have to buy them, though I recommend it.

Chess: 5334 Problems, Combinations, and Games (Laszlo Polgar)
1001 Brilliant Chess Sacrifices and Combinations (Reinfeld)

Free Online Chess Books

Chesszone.org offers a collection of English and Russian chess books in PDF or DJVU Viewer which include:


* J. R. Capablanca "Chess fundamentals"
* Edward Lasker "Chess Strategy"
* Pandolfini "Pandolfini's Endgame Course"

Submit your game for analysis on YouTube

I've had several requests to review submitted games.  If you played a game that you think would be interesting or instructive, then please submit it to kensoffice.contact@gmail.com


KingKibitz
Do Tactics. Study Games. Play Chess.