FIDE Publishes Rapid and Blitz Rating Lists. Nakamura Heads Both

The FIDE website has published Regulations for the World Rapid and Blitz Championships today. The main difference presented this year suggests "The events will be Swiss pairings tournaments and will be held over two days for Blitz and three days for Rapid. The Blitz will have fifteen rounds with each player playing with white and black against his paired opponent.

The men's and women's updated rating lists (as of 1 July) appeared on the FIDE site today. There were no sensational changes in the classical ratings and, despite Emil Sutovsky's assurances, Hou Yifan is still rated second among women.

Czech Grandmaster David Navara, who is now taking part in the European Championship in Jerusalem, has given an interview to Aleksander Nesterovsky (in Russian) after the 3rd round.

FIDE published an updated rating list for August.

Overall rating, classical chess
Magnus Carlsen 2877, Levon Aronian 2805, Fabiano Caruana 2801

Rapid
Fabiano Caruana 2858, Magnus Carlsen 2855, Alexander Grischuk 2828

The list of participants for the World Rapid and Blitz Championships is up on the official website of the competitions. Berlin will host a number of elite GMs including reigning champion (in all three titles - classical, rapid and blitz) Magnus Carlsen. In Germany he will be defending two of those titles. The championships will be held from October 10-14. 

The world rapid and blitz champions will take place from June 15-21 in Dubai. Both competitions will be heldin Swiss format: rapid (time control 15+10) - 15 rounds in two days, blitz (3+2) - 21 rounds in three days. The list of participants is available on the official website, for instance Evgeny Najer is only 50th according to his rating. First is Magnus Carlsen, he is followed by Levon Aronian, Alexander Grischuk and Vishy Anand.

Hikaru Nakamura had previously been over 2800 in the live ratings, but on the latest official monthly FIDE rating list, he has passed this barrier for the first time. The American's new rating on 1 June is 2802, fourth position in the world. He is two points behind Anand, three behind Caruana and 74 behind rating list leader Magnus Carlsen. 

The gold medal obtained by Kramnik with the Russian team at the World Championship cost him several individual ELO points. He moved to the 4th place in the rating list being surpassed by Hikaru Nakamura, who is now 3rd int he world. Topalov is 5th losing Kramnik only two points.Carlsen maintains lead with 2872 rating points. Check out the FIDE rating list for January, 2014.