India Fortifies Lead

India Fortifies Lead
By Arvind Aaron

One year back, India occupied the numero uno spot displacing France. The criteria is the number of players or names in the FIDE rating list. Today, a year later, India has fortified the position and widened the lead.

The difference between the number one and two is now large at 4405 players as on October 24, 2014. Also, Russia has overtaken France to be No.2.

Indian growth is due to good management of the All India Chess Federation and success by our players led by Viswanathan Anand. There is a desire among our chess lovers to get a FIDE rating. They participate in the rating restricted events to gain both rating and prize money.

Europe has to look at India to gain this kind of stimulus in creating a mass base of players. Here are the latest numbers:

India 43987
Russia 39582
France 38241
Spain 33835
Germany 29022