November 2021 saw two major chess competitions: FIDE Chess.com Grand Swiss and European Team Championship. These two events caused a lot of changes in the new rating list.

The big story is Alireza Firouzja‘s achievements in November that simply stagger the imagination. Indeed, after winning the FIDE Grand Swiss 2021 in Riga with an excellent result 8/11, the Iran-born teenager representing France steamrolled the competition in the European Team Championship, scoring 8/9 on the first board. These incredible results translated into 34 rating points and catapulted Firouzja to the second position in the open rating list. Alireza became the youngest player ever to surpass the 2800-rating mark, breaking the record set by Magnus Carlsen. 

Photo: Anna Shtourman

Several top tenners, namely Alexander Grischuk, Levon Aronian and Maxim Vachier-Lagrave, dropped quite a few rating points in Riga. In the Frenchman’s case, it cost him the place in the top-10. On the other end of the spectrum is Fabiano Caruana, who qualified for the Candidates and picked up one point along the way.

In the women’s rating list, the winner of Women’s Grand Swiss  Lei Tingjie (pictured below) earned 30 rating points and returned into the top-10 after more than a three-year absence, whereas Aleksandra Goryachkina widened her margin over Humpy Koneru in the women’s top-10 after gaining 6 rating points in the two major November competitions.  

Photo: Anna Shtourman

Biggest gains

Photo: Anna Shtourman

Coincidentally, many winners in this category debut in the open and women’s top-100. Indeed, Vantika Agrawal (pictured below), Julia Antolak and Vincent Keymer significantly increased their rating and deservedly broke into the respective top-100s. Vincent and Vantika did a great job in the FIDE Chess.com Grand Swiss, whereas Julia picked 34 points in the Polish Women’s Championship semifinals and Frauenbundesliga 2021/2022.

Photo: Anna Shtourman

Alexei Shirov, David Anton,  Grigory Oparin and Bogdan-Daniel Deac greatly benefited from their excellent performance at the FIDE Chess.com Grand Swiss as well, with the Russian and the Romanian reaching his career-high. For the most part, the same applies to Bibisara Assaubayeva (pictured below),  Lela Javakhishvili and Zhu Jiner, who netted plenty of points at the FIDE Chess.com Women’s Grand Swiss with the Kazakhstani youngster mounting to 33rd  position in the women’s rating list and 4th place in the top-100 girls.  

Photo: Mark Livshitz

Outside of top-100 open and women, we can see even more impressive rating jumps by the youngsters. For one thing, the progress at a young age is more rapid; for another, the lower you are ranked, the easier it is to accumulate points. Kudos to Nilufar Yakubbaeva (+77), Eline Roberts (+61), who is knocking at the top-100 door, Anastasia Avramidou (+57) and Alua Nurmanova (+53) for their impressive rating gains.