Anand goes down in ELO rating
By Vijay Kumar

Brussels,1st July 2006. The Chess Olympiad at Turin this year proved a costly affair to India,s Super Grandmaster Viswanathan Anand , who , due to his poor performance at the Turin Olympiad lost a record number of 24 points and slipped to 2779 points from 2803, while World No 1 Veselin Topalov , who won the Mtel Masters this year in Sofia gained a solid 9 points to remain on the top of the just published FIDE Rating chart with 2813 points.

Armenian Grandmaster Levon Aronian, who was instrumental in winning the Turin Olympiad Title for his team , not only kept third place, but also gained 5 points. Vladimir Kramnik's return to active chess after a year absence and whose great play in Turin helped him to gain 14 points regained the coveted 4 th place in the World Ratings. Peter Svidler lost 1 point and moved down from 4th to 5th place.Vassily Ivanchuk gained 11 points and jumped 3 places to 7th position while Adams did the same– 12 points and jumped 3 places to 8th spot. Mamedyarov gained 23 points and moved to 12th position .

Two Grandmasters Nisipeanu and Bareev, who were in top 20, list lost their coveted positions and are now down to No. 21 and 23rd places respectively. Peter Navara of Czech Republic and Gata Kamsky of USA joined the prestigious list of Top 20 with their remarkable performances . The former gained an astonishing 61 points in 36 games and moved up 36 places.

FIDE TOP 10 Players List
1. Topalov (1975, BUL) 2813 14
2. Anand (1969, IND) 2779 26
3. Aronian (1982, ARM) 2761 21
4. Kramnik (1975, RUS) 2743 9
5. Svidler (1976, RUS) 2742 28
6. Leko (1979, HUN) 2738 0
7. Ivanchuk (1969, UKR) 2734 39
8. Adams (1971, ENG) 2732 25
9. Morozevich (1977, RUS) 2731 18
10. Gelfand (1968, ISR) 2729 20