Kosteniuk takes silver in the FIDE Grand-Prix in Batumi 2016

On May 2, 2016 the Batumi’s Grand-Prix was finished. Thanks to the victories in the last two rounds, I was able to finish the tournament on the clear 2nd place with 6,5 points out of 11. Valentina Gunina won the event, Nino Batsiashvili took third place.

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FIDE inaugurates new Chess Rapid and Blitz Rating Lists

Today June 30, one day early, FIDE published the new chess rating lists. The big novelty is that new Rapid and Blitz rating lists have been inaugurated! So each player who plays all speeds of chess will have 3 ratings. In my case (see Alexandra Kosteniuk’s official FIDE rating page), on July 1, 2012 I will have 2472 ELO for classical chess (that’s +15 vs. last list), and I enter the Rapid list with 2568 ELO, and the Blitz list with 2505 ELO, which gives an average of 2515 ELO. I think that it is a great idea to have different rating lists for different styles of chess (classical, rapid, and blitz), as it is a fact that players have different success in different styles of play. In my case, I am close to 100 ELO stronger in rapid chess, which was obtained in having good success in most recent top level Rapid tournaments. Do you agree it is a good idea to have different chess ratings for classical, rapid and blitz chess? Please write your opinion in the comments or vote on the issue on www.chesspolls.com.

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