Movsesian move boosts Armenia FIDE rating
Chess 10.01.11 11:25
By Suren Musayelyan
ArmeniaNow Deputy Editor

A top Armenian grandmaster’s decision to join his nation’s federation has dramatically improved the standing of Armenia in the January 2011 rating list published by FIDE.

Sergei Movsesian, 32, left the Slovak Federation in late December to officially join Armenia. His move has also given a major boost to the nation’s ranking determined by international chess’s governing body bimonthly.

In the latest (January 2011) FIDE rating list of 159 chess nations ranked by the average rating of their top 10 players Armenia is fifth (average rating 2649; has 33 grandmasters and 19 international masters; ‘total titled’ – 75) – in contrast to the 10th position it occupied on the November 2010 list.

(Click here for the complete FIDE rating list for nations: http://ratings.fide.com/topfed.phtml)

Armenia’s top grandmaster Levon Aronian preserves his third rank among the world’s best chess players. The January 1, 2011 Top 100 players list shows Aronian with a rating of 2805 and trailing Norway’s Magnus Carlsen (rating 2814) and India’s Viswanathan Anand (rating 2810).

Georgia-born Movsesian, who represented Slovakia for years and has won several prestigious chess tournaments in his career, holds the 26th position in the FIDE list (with a rating of 2721), which makes him Armenia’s second highest ranked player at the present time.

The FIDE latest Top 100 player rankings also feature two other Armenian grandmasters and members of the national team – Vladimir Hakobyan (63) and Gabriel Sargsyan (75).

(Click here for full rankings http://ratings.fide.com/top.phtml?list=men)

The FIDE Top 100 female players list includes three Armenian grandmasters. The highest rank among them is held by Lilit Mkrtchyan (26th; rating 2475), followed by Elina Danielyan (38) and Lilit Galoyan (81). Hungary’s Judit Polgar tops the rankings with a rating of 2686.

Source: http://armenianow.com

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