The highest rated players of all time

by ChessBase
1/5/2010 – According to the current FIDE rankings Magnus Carlsen is the strongest player in the world. But his rating of 2810 is not the highest ever. That was achieved by Garry Kasparov, who in the July 1999 FIDE list reached 2851 points. Two other players have at some stage had higher ratings than Magnus. Here's a list of all Super-GMs (over 2700) and their top ratings.

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Top Ratings of Super-GM

Three years ago Przemek Jahr of Pila, Poland, sent us a list of all players who had reached a rating of 2700 or higher, giving their highest ever ratings and the year and the FIDE list in which it was achieved. Chess fan Kostantin Ikonomovski of Jankovec, Macedonia, has been updating this list meticulously and sent us the latest version that incorporates all list up to the January 1st 2010 FIDE rankings.

Konstantin is a member of the amater team of Alkaloid for many years; "That meant that I used to have four extra vacations every year on company expences," he writes, "always in some wonderful places throughout the former Yugoslavia. I carry beautiful memories of this."

Addendum: the publication of this list under the original front page title "The strongest players of all time" has led to some furious messages from readers who blame "rating inflation" for putting Bobby Fischer in place nine. We have sought to placate them with a title change ("highest rated players") and understand that we will have to (sigh) come back to this subject again soon.

Addendum 2: We have made some corrections in the list. Carlsen has switched places with Kramnik, whose highest rating was 2809, not 2811. Grischuk was corrected and is now one place lower, and Sergey Tiviakov was removed from the list, since his 2700 rating in October 2005 was corrected to 2699.

Top ten rated players of all time

The highest rating ever, by Garry Kasparov, is 38 points more than any other player in history. Five players have crossed the 2800 mark, five players have come within twenty points of it. Here's the complete table.

Super-GMs who achieved a 2700 or higher rating

 #

 Surname, Name

Nat.

Born

Max

When

01.10

1

Kasparov, Garry

RUS

1963

2851

1999.07

2812

2

Topalov, Veselin

BUL

1975

2813

2006.07

2805

3

Carlsen, Magnus

NOR

1990

2810

2010.01

2810

4

Kramnik, Vladimir

RUS

1975

2809

2002.01

2788

5

Anand, Viswanathan

IND

1969

2803

2006.04

2790

6

Morozevich, Alexander

RUS

1977

2788

2008.07

2732

7

Ivanchuk, Vassily

UKR

1969

2787

2007.10

2749

8

Aronian, Levon

ARM

1982

2786

2009.11

2781

9

Fischer, Robert

USA

1943

2785

1972.04

2785

10

Karpov, Anatoly

RUS

1951

2780

1994.07

2619

11

Svidler, Peter

RUS

1976

2765

2006.01

2744

12

Leko, Peter

HUN

1979

2763

2005.04

2739

13

Radjabov, Teimour

AZE

1987

2761

2009.01

2733

14

Gelfand, Boris

ISR

1968

2761

2010.01

2761

15

Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar

AZE

1985

2760

2008.01

2741

16

Jakovenko, Dmitry

RUS

1983

2760

2009.01

2730

17

Gashimov, Vugar

AZE

1986

2759

2010.01

2759

18

Shirov, Alexei

ESP

1972

2755

2008.01

2723

19

Adams, Michael

ENG

1971

2755

2000.07

2694

20

Movsesian, Sergei

SVK

1978

2751

2009.01

2704

21

Wang, Yue

CHN

1987

2749

2010.01

2749

22

Grischuk, Alexander

RUS

1983

2748

2009.04

2736

23

Kamsky, Gata

USA

1974

2745

1996.07

2693

24

Ponomariov, Ruslan

UKR

1983

2743

2002.04

2737

25

Bareev, Evgeny

RUS

1966

2739

2003.10

2643

36

Eljanov, Pavel

UKR

1983

2736

2010.01

2736

27

Polgar, Judith

HUN

1976

2735

2005.07

2682

28

Nakamura, Hikaru

USA

1987

2735

2009.09

2708

29

Karjakin Sergey

RUS

1990

2732

2008.01

2720

30

Bacrot, Etienne

FRA

1983

2731

2005.04

2713

31

Vachier-Laqrave, Maxime

FRA

1990

2730

2010.01

2730

32

Navara, David

CZE

1985

2725

2006.10

2708

33

Alekseev, Evgeny

RUS

1985

2725

2009.09

2703

34

Ni, Hua

CHN

1983

2724

2009.04

2657

35

Dominguez Perez, Lenier

CUB

1983

2721

2009.04

2712

36

Malakhov, Vladimir

RUS

1980

2716

2009.09

2716

37

Salov, Valery

RUS

1964

2715

1995.01

2644

38

Wang Hao

CHN

1989

2715

2010.01

2715

39

Van Wely, Loek

NED

1972

2714

2001.10

2652

40

Bu, Xiangzhi

CHN

1985

2714

2008.10

2682

41

Akopian, Vladimir

ARM

1971

2713

2006.07

2700

42

Cheparinov, Ivan

BUL

1986

2713

2008.01

2660

43

Short, Nigel

ENG

1965

2712

2004.04

2707

44

Sasikiran, Krishnan

IND

1981

2711

2009.01

2664

45

Vellejo-Pons Francisco

ESP

1982

2711

2009.11

2711

46

Beliavsky, Alexander

SLO

1953

2710

1997.07

2657

47

Motylev Alexander

RUS

1979

2710

2009.07

2697

48

Almasi Zoltan

HUN

1976

2710

2010.01

2710

49

Tomashevsky Evgeny

RUS

1987

2708

2009.11

2705

50

Nisipeanu, Liviu-Dieter

ROM

1976

2707

2005.10

2681

51

Kasimdzhanov, Rustam

UZB

1979

2706

2001.10

2702

52

Sokolov, Ivan

BIH

1968

2706

2004.01

2649

53

Tal, Mikhail

LAT

1936

2705

1980.01

2705

54

Dreev, Alexey

RUS

1969

2705

2003.10

2650

55

Milov, Vadim

SUI

1972

2705

2008.07

2644

56

Jobava Baadur

GEO

1983

2704

2010.01

2704

57

Rublevski, Sergei

RUS

1974

2703

2009.07

2697

58

Krasenkow, Michal

POL

1963

2702

2000.07

2656

59

Smirin, Ilia

ISR

1966

2702

2001.07

2668

60

Khalifman, Alexander

RUS

1968

2702

2001.10

2616

61

Azmaiparashvili, Zurab

GEO

1960

2702

2003.07

2637

62

Bologan, Viktor

MDA

1971

2700

2005.04

2692

63

Naiditsch Arkadij

GER

1985

2700

2008-04

2687

Colour codes: Veteran active, Retired, Deceased

See also articles by Jeff Sonas

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