TOPALOV RANKED NO. 1 AGAIN, BUT DOES IT MATTER?

Dylan Loeb McClain

New York Times
July 1, 2009, 4:11 pm

The official world rankings from the World Chess Federation were
released July 1 and there were no surprises. Veselin Topalov of
Bulgaria is ranked No. 1, as he has been for the last year. Viswanathan
Anand of India, the world champion, is No. 2, a spot that he has
occupied most of the time since April 2004 (with a period at No. 1
in 2007 and 2008). While the rankings are still important, if for
no other reason than that they are often used by organizers of
tournaments to figure out which players to invite to their events,
they mean less than they once did. One difference is that people know
what the rankings will be before they are released because unofficial
estimates calculate changes accurately on a daily basis. But the
importance of the rankings has also been diminished because the chess
world is awash in parity. Lately, it seems any top player has a good
chance to win a tournament in which he participates. For example, at
the Corus tournament in January, Sergey Karjakin of Ukraine, currently
No. 20, won, ahead of Magnus Carlsen of Norway, No. 3, Levon Aronian
of Armenia, No. 4, and Teimour Radjabov of Azerbaijan, No. 8. In March,
Alexander Grischuk of Russia, No. 14, and Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine,
No. 30, tied for first at Linares, ahead of Anand and Carlsen. In May,
Alexei Shirov of Spain, No. 15, won the M-tel Masters, ahead of Topalov
and Carlsen, while Ivanchuk finished last. Shirov followed up that
triumph by finishing last at the Karpov Tournament in Poikovsky, Russia
in June. The tournament was won by Alexander Motylev of Russia, No. 27,
ahead of Vugar Gashimov of Azerbaijan, No. 11. Shortly afterward,
Ivanchuk found his form again and won the Kings Tournament in Bazna,
Romania, ahead of Shirov, Radjabov and Boris Gelfand of Israel,
No. 9. Such parity contrasts with the situation 20 years ago. Then,
Garry Kasparov, who was world champion and ranked No. 1, bestrode
the chess world. From 1981 to 1990, he won or tied for first in 15
consecutive tournaments. While he did not continue to win at such an
incredible pace during the 1990’s, he still won most of the events
he entered. Anatoly Karpov, Kasparov’s predecessor as world champion,
was almost equally dominant during his reign from 1975-85.

With the advances in overall chess knowledge, it seems unlikely that
anyone will ever be head-and-shoulders above the competition again.