Anand six points off 2800 barrier

Garry Kasparov of Russia holds the top rating, with 2827 points, but Vladimir Kramnik is within 30 points of the leader after becoming the second man ever to log over 2800 points.

Anand, who won the Advance chess title for the third successive time last week, is in third position, with 2794 points. There is a huge gap between the Indian world champion and fourth-placed Michael Adams, who has 2750 points.

Statistically, Kasparov has gone down by 14 points. In January 2001, he had 2849 points.

Other top 100 players whose points have fallen are Loek Van Wely of The Netherlands, Boris F Gulko of the United States, Evgeniy Najer of Russia and Boris Avrukh of Isreal.

New entrants in the list are Bartlomiej Macieja of Poland, Alexander Motylev of Russia, Zurab Sturua of Georgia, Mladen Palac of Crotia.

This official list, formally released in January and July, now appears additionally in April and October.

There are 37,633 players in the April FIDE rating list. They played 67,568 games from January to March 2001. The average rating of the April list is 2201.7. The maximum number of chess players live in Germany -- 4737. There are 4,242 players with rating in Russia. India has got 804 players with ratings.

In the women's category, Russia has the maximum number rated players, with 515. Gemany, with 180, is second. India has 49 rated women's players.

India has five Grandmasters, with an average rating of 2584, and 27 International Masters, with an average rating of 2379.81.

The only other Indian in the top 100 is Krishnan Sasikiran, in 76th position with 2611 points.

The Top 10 players:

No.	Name	Title	Fed	Rating	Birthday
1	Garry Kasparov	g	RUS	2827	13.04.63
2	Vladimir Kramnik	g	RUS	2802	25.06.75
3	Viswanathan Anand	g	IND	2794	11.12.69
4	Robert J Fischer	g	USA	2780
5	Michael Adams	g	ENG	2750	17.11.71
6	Alexander Morozevich	g	RUS	2749	18.07.77
7	Vassily Ivanchuk	g	UKR	2731	18.03.69
8	Peter Leko	g	HUN	2731	08.09.79
9	Alexei Shirov	g	ESP	2723	04.07.72
10	Gata Kamsky	g	USA	2717	02.06.74

Also see:
Vishwanathan Anand - The King