My World Top Five
: Created:14 Jun 2011 , byMy choice is not a repetition of the FIDE ranking list but is a personal reflexion on the situation after the Kazan Candidates Tournament.
Number one is of course Viswanathan Anand, the world champion who happily is top of the May FIDE ratings. In second place must be Boris Gelfand, his official challenger who battled his way through the Candidates Tournament and gained my endless admiration for his gritty victory with Black against Gata Kamsky that preserved his chances.
So where was Magnus Carlsen, my number three during the Candidates Tournament? Carlsen has a splendid 2815 rating but chose not compete at Kazan. Was it Archilles sulking in his tent or a genuine protest against a short match system that proved in practice to be a flawed "boreathon"? Carlsen's talent keeps him in my top five despite my disapproval of his isolationist stance.
Alexander Grischuk, my fourth choice got to the final of the Candidates but allowed by the rules, his (sound in practice) tactics earned contempt from lovers of chess but my goodness he was not the only one. Turning to more postive thoughts, I've promoted Hikaru Nakamura to number five because of the quality of his games. Shorn of the puppy fat, he appears a genuine American challenger, original in concept and capable of mounting and resisting the long attritional battles inevitable at the top level.
The official May list is 1.Anand 2.Carlsen 3.Aronian 4.Kramnik 5.Ivanchuk.
I wrote a few years back in Chessknight that a tournament that included the world champion was the best way of deciding the title and recent events have solidified my view.