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Here are some juicy tit bits that are emergening out of the Kramnik Anand World Chess Championship match. By beating Vladimir Kramnik of Russia, Vishwanathan Anand of India has hit three birds with one stone. - Narrowed the head to head gap to just one - Climbed to World No. 2 on the Dynamic (Live) Chess Ratings - Of course, took the lead in the match

The rating list for January 2008 has been published a bit early this time. As expected Anand and Kramnik are tied for the first place with 2799. Topalov moves to number three. Big gainers are Svidler, Carlsen, Karjakin and Cheparinov. Svidler in fact jumped into the top five in style. He is about to lose some serious points from the Russian Superfinals event though. But that event will be rated only in the next list. Shirov too moves deeper into the top ten. Mamedyarov is already firmly entrenched in the top ten. In the women's section, Koneru Humpy of India is gaining on Judit Polgar of Hungary. The difference between them is now only 95 points. No one has dared come nearer in recent times. Hou Yifan is also bound to challenge these two very soon. Zhu Chen is probably coming back to her full form. She is now fourth and is one of the fastest movers. She has gained in the last six rating lists consecutively ! Probably for the first time, the top ten active players in the ladies sect...