As usual, at the beginning of a month (actually – on March 31st) FIDE published its new Rating List for April 2013. However, when I saw the list of Top 100 Blitz players on the prestigious e3e5 website, I could not believe my eyes; take a look yourself at the list of the world’s “top” ten blitz players. Notes by Dr Vladica Andrejic.
ID# Name T Fed Blitz Gms BYear
14500213 Rogulj, Branko IM CRO 2920 / 130 / 1951
14109603 Karjakin, Sergey GM RUS 2873 / 0 / 1990
4126025 Grischuk, Alexander GM RUS 2858 / 0 / 1983
1503014 Carlsen, Magnus GM NOR 2856 / 0 / 1990
2016192 Nakamura, Hikaru GM USA 2844 / 0 / 1987
623539 Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime GM FRA 2825 / 0 / 1990
4158814 Andreikin, Dmitry GM RUS 2824 / 0 / 1990
13300474 Aronian, Levon GM ARM 2817 / 0 / 1982
4168119 Nepomniachtchi, Ian GM RUS 2813 / 0 / 1990
14500337 Mrdja, Milan IM CRO 2811 / 110 / 1954
Was it a delayed April Fool’s Day joke? How could it be possible to have Croatian International Master Branko Rogulj atop the official FIDE Blitz Rating List (ahead of Karjakin!), with a staggering Elo of 2920?
I double-checked it on the official FIDE website, and it confirmed that Rogulj really had 2920. Now, how could that be possible? My first impulse was to attribute it to the generally imperfect FIDE system, where an individual could amass many Elo points as a result of playing 130 games in a rating period.
