On the up!

The 2700 player who has gained the most rating points of all is Michael Adams of England (+22!) who seems to be getting back to something like his top form. His 9.5/11 in the British Championships doing him no harm at all! the photo was taken by Steve Giddins (official English Chess federation site).

I estimate that provisionally he will rise from 35th to 18th in the World rankings.

Two Ukrainian players who have good results of late are Vassily Ivanchuk (winning the Capablanca Memorial) and Ruslan Ponomariov (champion in Dortmund). Both are likely to go up 15 rating points on the next list taking Ivanchuk from 12th to 9th and Ponomariov from 14th to 10th. Along with Eljanov who stays 8th, the Ukraine would then have three players in the top ten!

After a rough few months Wang Yue is heading back in the right direction with about 16 points up his sleeve. This should take him from 28th to 16th.

Of course we'll have to wait until the 1st of September for an official list, but there won't be too many changes to my off-the-cuff calculations this late in the month.

Many of the leading men have been inactive over the summer after a busy spring but rather more of top the ladies have been playing, especially with the Ulan Bator (there are many alternative spellings!) Grand Prix having just finished.

Here is my estimate of the 'virtual' top ten ladies:

Nadezhda has gained 17.4 (and up from 6th to 5th) whereas sister Tatiana is 10.1 points up on last time. Kosteniuk has made a more modest rating gain but is still in the process of rising two places.