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The Year 2003 in Review

The World's Best Players

The year 2003 was not a great year for chess. The reunification of the World Championship title, which should have been the biggest story of the year, met only setbacks. The biggest events were Kasparov matches with two of the world's strongest chess playing computers. Once again, we owe a big debt to Mark Crowther's The Week in Chess (see the link on the right) and its global network of correspondents. Let's start by listing the world's top players, as announced quarterly by FIDE. World's Top-10 (FIDE) 2003 Name Nat : Jan : Apr : Jun : Oct Kasparov, Garry RUS : 2847 1 : 2830 1 : 2830 1 : 2830 1 Kramnik, Vladimir RUS : 2807 2 : 2789 2 : 2785 2 : 2777 2 Anand, Viswanathan IND : 2753 3 : 2764 3 : 2774 3 : 2766 3 Bareev, Evgeny RUS : 2729 8 : 2734 7 : 2721 9 : 2739 4 Shirov, Alexei ESP : 2723 9 : 2735 5 : 2732 7 : 2737 5 Topalov, Veselin BUL : 2743 4 : 2735 6 : 2735 5 : 2735 6 Grischuk, Alexander RUS : 2712 10 : : 2732 6 : 2732 7 Adams, Michael ENG : 2734 6 : 2723 8 : 2719 10 : 2725 8 Svidler, Peter RUS : : : 2723 8 : 2723 9 Leko, Peter HUN : 2736 5 : 2746 4 : 2739 4 : 2722 10 Polgar, Judit HUN : : 2715 10 : : 2722 11 Ponomariov, Ruslan UKR : 2734 7 : 2718 9 : : For the second consecutive year, Kasparov, Kramnik, and Anand held their number 1, 2, and 3 rankings throughout the year. Twelve names appeared on the list at least once during the year. Eight names appeared on every list; of the rest, Svidler took Ponomariovs place, Grischuk dropped off the list once (in April), and Judit Polgar confirmed her status as the strongest woman the world has ever seen, by twice coming in at 10th. In May, 64 Magazine awarded the Chess Oscar for 2002 to Kasparov, who gathered 3802 points, including 228 1st place votes. He was followed by Leko (2668, 27 1st) and Anand (2453, 20). It was Kasparov's 5th win in 8 years. Next : World Championship 2003

More of this Feature • The Best Players • World Championship • International Events • National Championships • Opens • Computers • Passages  Related Resources • The Best Players 2002  Elsewhere on the Web • The Week in Chess