Magnus Carlsen is first on the March FIDE rating list. With 2881 ELO, the World Chess Champion achieves a new historical highest rating, breaking his own previous record of 2872.
At second position is the top seeded player of the Candidates Tournament 2014, Levon Aronian. He gained 4 points to climb to 2830 ELO. With Magnus gaining 11, the distance between the two players increased to 51 points, despite their draw in Zurich Chess 2014.
At positions 3 and 4 are two more participants in the Candidates tournament – Vladimir Kramnik and Veselin Topalov. They were inactive during the month of February and maintained their ratings of 2787 and 2785 respectively.
Fabiano Caruana is fifth, gaining two ELO points from his participation in Zurich. Top 10 is completed by Alexander Grischuk, Hikaru Nakamura, Viswanathan Anand, Sergey Karjakin, and the first time top 10 entrant Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. His beautiful games in Gibraltar 2014 gave him the needed push to be the 10th highest rated player on the March FIDE rating list.
A notable rising star is Denis Khismatullin who gained 16 points, he highest gain in the period, and joined the 2700 club.
March FIDE rating list
| 1 | Carlsen, Magnus | NOR | 2881 |
| 2 | Aronian, Levon | ARM | 2830 |
| 3 | Kramnik, Vladimir | RUS | 2787 |
| 4 | Topalov, Veselin | BUL | 2785 |
| 5 | Caruana, Fabiano | ITA | 2783 |
| 6 | Grischuk, Alexander | RUS | 2777 |
| 7 | Nakamura, Hikaru | USA | 2772 |
| 8 | Anand, Viswanathan | IND | 2770 |
| 9 | Karjakin, Sergey | RUS | 2766 |
| 10 | Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime | FRA | 2758 |
| 11 | Svidler, Peter | RUS | 2758 |
| 12 | Dominguez Perez, Leinier | CUB | 2757 |
| 13 | Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar | AZE | 2757 |
| 14 | Ivanchuk, Vassily | UKR | 2753 |
| 15 | Gelfand, Boris | ISR | 2753 |
| 16 | Adams, Michael | ENG | 2751 |
| 17 | Vitiugov, Nikita | RUS | 2747 |
| 18 | Giri, Anish | NED | 2745 |
| 19 | Bacrot, Etienne | FRA | 2739 |
| 20 | So, Wesley | PHI | 2738 |
| 21 | Wang, Hao | CHN | 2734 |
| 22 | Nepomniachtchi, Ian | RUS | 2732 |
| 23 | Leko, Peter | HUN | 2730 |
| 24 | Eljanov, Pavel | UKR | 2723 |
| 25 | Jakovenko, Dmitry | RUS | 2723 |
| 26 | Morozevich, Alexander | RUS | 2722 |
| 27 | Ponomariov, Ruslan | UKR | 2721 |
| 28 | Korobov, Anton | UKR | 2719 |
| 29 | Ding, Liren | CHN | 2717 |
| 30 | Malakhov, Vladimir | RUS | 2717 |
| 31 | Wang, Yue | CHN | 2717 |
| 32 | Jobava, Baadur | GEO | 2716 |
| 33 | Harikrishna, P. | IND | 2714 |
| 34 | Khismatullin, Denis | RUS | 2714 |
| 35 | Shirov, Alexei | LAT | 2713 |
| 36 | Wojtaszek, Radoslaw | POL | 2713 |
| 37 | Radjabov, Teimour | AZE | 2713 |
| 38 | Moiseenko, Alexander | UKR | 2712 |
| 39 | Tomashevsky, Evgeny | RUS | 2711 |
| 40 | Kamsky, Gata | USA | 2709 |
| 41 | Fressinet, Laurent | FRA | 2709 |
| 42 | Andreikin, Dmitry | RUS | 2709 |
| 43 | Le, Quang Liem | VIE | 2709 |
| 44 | Naiditsch, Arkadij | GER | 2706 |
| 45 | Kryvoruchko, Yuriy | UKR | 2706 |
| 46 | Rublevsky, Sergei | RUS | 2706 |
| 47 | Areshchenko, Alexander | UKR | 2705 |
| 48 | Almasi, Zoltan | HUN | 2704 |
| 49 | Li, Chao b | CHN | 2700 |
| 50 | Navara, David | CZE | 2700 |
| 51 | Bu, Xiangzhi | CHN | 2699 |
| 52 | Inarkiev, Ernesto | RUS | 2698 |
| 53 | Vallejo Pons, Francisco | ESP | 2697 |
| 54 | Matlakov, Maxim | RUS | 2695 |
| 55 | Nisipeanu, Liviu-Dieter | ROU | 2695 |
| 56 | Polgar, Judit | HUN | 2693 |
| 57 | Alekseev, Evgeny | RUS | 2692 |
| 58 | Rodshtein, Maxim | ISR | 2691 |
| 59 | Kasimdzhanov, Rustam | UZB | 2690 |
| 60 | Riazantsev, Alexander | RUS | 2689 |
| 61 | Berkes, Ferenc | HUN | 2687 |
| 62 | Van Wely, Loek | NED | 2684 |
| 63 | McShane, Luke J | ENG | 2683 |
| 64 | Akopian, Vladimir | ARM | 2682 |
| 65 | Rapport, Richard | HUN | 2681 |
| 66 | Cheparinov, Ivan | BUL | 2681 |
| 67 | Laznicka, Viktor | CZE | 2681 |
| 68 | Granda Zuniga, Julio E | PER | 2680 |
| 69 | Dreev, Aleksey | RUS | 2679 |
| 70 | Onischuk, Alexander | USA | 2679 |
| 71 | Bruzon Batista, Lazaro | CUB | 2678 |
| 72 | Movsesian, Sergei | ARM | 2678 |
| 73 | Sargissian, Gabriel | ARM | 2676 |
| 74 | Sasikiran, Krishnan | IND | 2676 |
| 75 | Grachev, Boris | RUS | 2675 |
| 76 | Short, Nigel D | ENG | 2674 |
| 77 | Volokitin, Andrei | UKR | 2674 |
| 78 | Istratescu, Andrei | FRA | 2672 |
| 79 | Zhigalko, Sergei | BLR | 2671 |
| 80 | Edouard, Romain | FRA | 2670 |
| 81 | Yu, Yangyi | CHN | 2664 |
| 82 | Bartel, Mateusz | POL | 2662 |
| 83 | Saric, Ivan | CRO | 2661 |
| 84 | Mamedov, Rauf | AZE | 2660 |
| 85 | Ni, Hua | CHN | 2658 |
| 86 | Khairullin, Ildar | RUS | 2657 |
| 87 | Efimenko, Zahar | UKR | 2657 |
| 88 | Amin, Bassem | EGY | 2657 |
| 89 | Motylev, Alexander | RUS | 2656 |
| 90 | Safarli, Eltaj | AZE | 2656 |
| 91 | Gharamian, Tigran | FRA | 2655 |
| 92 | Lysyj, Igor | RUS | 2655 |
| 93 | Socko, Bartosz | POL | 2654 |
| 94 | Lenic, Luka | SLO | 2654 |
| 95 | Erdos, Viktor | HUN | 2654 |
| 96 | Sjugirov, Sanan | RUS | 2653 |
| 97 | Nielsen, Peter Heine | DEN | 2653 |
| 98 | Zvjaginsev, Vadim | RUS | 2653 |
| 99 | Sutovsky, Emil | ISR | 2652 |
| 100 | Tiviakov, Sergei | NED | 2651 |
| 101 | Balogh, Csaba | HUN | 2651 |
| 102 | Jones, Gawain C B | ENG | 2651 |
