Last FIDE Ratings: Carlsen 12 Points Ahead Of Caruana

During the Sinquefield Cup it was a close call, but Magnus Carlsen starts the month of September with a 12-point lead over Fabiano Caruana in the new chess FIDE rating list. The world champion also tops the lists for rapid and blitz.

Winning as Black was too much to ask, but the fact is that Caruana would have taken over the number one spot in the live ratings had he beaten Carlsen last week. As it went, the Norwegian kept his number one ranking which he has held since 2011.

Still, the gap between the top two players in the world is narrow. Before their match in November in London, Caruana still has quite a few games to play at the Olympiad, while Carlsen has a maximum of seven at the European Club Cup. In any case, there's a good chance that the world championship will see a battle between the world numbers one and two for the first time since Kasparov-Karpov, 1990.

The classical list shows Shakhriyar Mamedyarov's further rise to the top, based on his tournaments in Biel and St. Louis. He won a total of 19.1 points this summer.

There's one more 2800 player: Ding Liren. The Chinese GM, now mostly recovered from his hip fracture, played a four-game match with Veselin Topalov mid-August. He won two games and drew two, to gain 7.2 points.

The biggest margin in the top 10 is the one between number four and five. 24 points below Ding we see a trio of players, all with a 2780 rating: Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Levon Aronian and Anish Giri.

Former top 10 regulars Hikaru Nakamura and Sergey Karjakin didn't have a great summer and are now in places 14 and 15, behind e.g. Ian Nepomniachtchi and Yu Yangyi.