List of chess players by peak FIDE rating

This is the list of top ranked chess grandmasters, ordered by their peak Elo rating. The cut-off value is 2700.

Notably only six players achieved their over 2700 peak before 2000 and 24 players achieved their respective peak between 2000 and 2009 (including).

List

FIDE players ordered by peak Elo rating

	Federations	Player	Peak rating	Achieved	Notes
2800+
1		Magnus Carlsen	2882	2014-05	Highest ranked Norwegian player, Highest ranked player, World Champion (2013-present)
2		Garry Kasparov	2851	1999-07	Highest ranked Russian player, former World Champion (1985-2000), first player to achieve 2800+ ranking
3		Fabiano Caruana	2844	2014-10	Highest ranked US player, formerly highest ranked Italian player (till 2015) - 2844, 2014-10
4		Levon Aronian	2830	2014-03	Highest ranked Armenian player.
5		Viswanathan Anand	2817	2011-09	Highest ranked Indian player, former World Champion (2000-2002, 2007-2013)
6		Veselin Topalov	2816	2015-07	Highest ranked Bulgarian player, former World Champion (2005-2006)
7		Hikaru Nakamura	2816	2015-10
8		Vladimir Kramnik	2811	2013-05	Former World Champion (2000, 2006-2007)
9		Alexander Grischuk	2810	2014-12
2775-2799
10		Anish Giri	2798	2015-10	Highest ranked Dutch player
11		Teimour Radjabov	2793	2012-10	Highest ranked Azerbaijani player
12		Alexander Morozevich	2788	2008-07
13		Sergey Karjakin	2788	2011-07
14		Wesley So	2788	2015-02	Formerly highest ranked Filipino player (till 2014) - 2755, 2014-08
15		Vassily Ivanchuk	2787	2007-10	Highest ranked Ukrainian player
16		Bobby Fischer	2785	1972-07	Former World Champion (1972-1975), first player to achieve 2700+ ranking
17		Maxime Vachier-Lagrave	2785	2016-01	Highest ranked French player
18		Ding Liren	2782	2015-09	Highest ranked Chinese player
19		Anatoly Karpov	2780	1994-07	Former World Champion (1975-1985, 1993-1999)
20		Boris Gelfand	2777	2013-11	Highest ranked Israeli player, formerly highest ranked Belarusian player (till 1998) - 2675 (Now Sergei Zhigalko - 2696, 2011-09)
21		Shakhriyar Mamedyarov	2775	2013-08
2750-2774
22		Peter Svidler	2769	2013-05
23		Leinier Dominguez Perez	2768	2014-05	Highest ranked Cuban player
24		Ruslan Ponomariov	2764	2011-07	Former World Champion (2002-2004)
25		Peter Leko	2763	2005-04	Highest ranked Hungarian player
26		Gata Kamsky	2763	2013-07
27		Pavel Eljanov	2763	2015-12
28		Vugar Gashimov	2761	2012-01
29		Michael Adams	2761	2013-09	Highest ranked English player
30		Dmitry Jakovenko	2760	2009-01
31		Evgeny Tomashevsky	2758	2015-09
32		Wang Yue	2756	2010-09
33		Li Chao	2756	2015-09
34		Alexei Shirov	2755	2008-01	Highest ranked Latvian player, formerly highest ranked Spanish player (till 2011) - 2755, 2008-01
35		Wang Hao	2752	2013-01
36		Pentala Harikrishna	2755	2016-01
37		Sergei Movsesian	2751	2009-01	Formerly highest ranked Slovak player (till 2010) - 2751, 2009-01
38		David Navara	2751	2015-05	Highest ranked Czech player
2725-2749
39		Etienne Bacrot	2749	2013-11
40		Radoslaw Wojtaszek	2749	2015-06	Highest ranked Polish player
41		Nikita Vitiugov	2747	2014-03
42		Yu Yangyi	2747	2016-01
43		Evgeny Bareev	2739	2003-10	Highest ranked Canadian player
44		Arkadij Naiditsch	2737	2013-12	Formerly highest ranked German player (till 2015) - 2737, 2013-12
45		Dmitry Andreikin	2737	2014-12
46		Wei Yi	2737	2015-11
47		Judit Polgar	2735	2005-07	Highest ranked female player
48		Ian Nepomniachtchi	2735	2012-01
49		Viktor Bologan	2734	2012-08	Highest ranked Moldovian player
50		Baadur Jobava	2734	2012-09	Highest ranked Georgian player
51		Vladimir Malakhov	2732	2010-07
52		Zoltan Almasi	2726	2011-07
53		Alexander Moiseenko	2726	2011-09
54		Evgeny Alekseev	2725	2009-09
55		Andrei Volokitin	2725	2013-03
2710-2724
56		Ni Hua	2724	2009-04
57		Francisco Vallejo Pons	2724	2011-07	Highest ranked Spanish player
58		Bu Xiangzhi	2724	2016-01
59		Anton Korobov	2723	2014-01
60		Richard Rapport	2721	2016-01
61		Krishnan Sasikiran	2720	2012-05
62		Alexander Riazantsev	2720	2012-07
63		Alexander Areshchenko	2720	2012-12
64		Laurent Fressinet	2720	2015-06
65		Le Quang Liem	2718	2015-09	Highest ranked Vietnamese player
66		Lazaro Bruzon Batista	2717	2012-10
67		Yuriy Kryvoruchko	2717	2015-11
68		Valery Salov	2715	1995-01
69		Rustam Kasimdzhanov	2715	2015-05	Highest ranked Uzbek player, former World Champion (2004-2005)
70		Loek Van Wely	2714	2001-10
71		Denis Khismatullin	2714	2014-03
72		Vladimir Akopian	2713	2006-07
73		Ivan Cheparinov	2713	2008-01
74		Luke McShane	2713	2012-07
75		Nigel Short	2712	2004-04
76		David Howell	2712	2015-08
77		Alexey Dreev	2711	2011-07
78		Alexander Beliavsky	2710	1997-07	Highest ranked Slovenian player
79		Alexander Motylev	2710	2009-07
2700-2709
80		Zahar Efimenko	2708	2011-03
81		Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu	2707	2005-10	Highest ranked German player, formerly highest ranked Romanian player (till 2014) - 2707, 2005-10
82		Ernesto Inarkiev	2707	2012-05
83		Ivan Sokolov	2706	2004-01	Formerly highest ranked Bosnian player (till 1994) - 2650 (Now Predrag Nikolić - 2676, 2004-10)
84		Ferenc Berkes	2706	2011-09
85		Sergei Rublevsky	2706	2013-11
86		Mikhail Tal	2705	1980-01	Former world champion (1960-1961)
87		Vadim Milov	2705	2008-07	Highest ranked Swiss player
88		Boris Grachev	2705	2012-03
89		Viktor Laznicka	2704	2012-01
90		Emil Sutovsky	2703	2012-01
91		Michal Krasenkow	2702	2000-07
92		Ilia Smirin	2702	2001-07
93		Alexander Khalifman	2702	2001-10	Former World Champion (1999-2000)
94		Zurab Azmaiparashvili	2702	2003-07
95		Romain Edouard	2702	2014-06
96		Igor Kovalenko	2702	2015-08
97		Gabriel Sargissian	2702	2015-12
98		Alexander Onischuk	2701	2010-07
99		Peter Heine Nielsen	2700	2010-07	Highest ranked Danish player
100		Maxim Matlakov	2700	2013-11
101		Igor Lysyj	2700	2015-01

Read more:

• List of FIDE chess world number ones
• Comparison of top chess players throughout history