KOCHI: Viswanathan Anand has reached his career best rating of 2,795 in the July 1998 rating list of the World Chess Federation. In the national ranking list brought out by All India Chess Federation, Grandmaster Dibyendu Barua of West Bengal gained 20 points in six months to occupy the second place behind Anand with 2,540 points.

Former national champion and holder of two GM norms Abhijit Kunte of Pune, Maharashtra made a significant leap in the last six months and crossed the 2,500-barrier for the first time to reach 2,505 for the third place.The top 20: 1.Viswanathan Anand (2,795), 2.D.Barua (2,540), 3.Abhijit Kunte (2,505), 4. Sasikiran (2,470), 5.Pravin Thipsay of Maharashtra (2,450), 6.Anup Deshmukh of LIC (2,430), 7.G.B.Prakash of BSB (2,415), 8. P.Konguvel of PSCB (2,410), 9.D.V.Prasad of PSCB (2,405), 10.Neelotpal Das of West Bengal (2,405), 11.Lanka Ravi of NLC (2,400), 12. V.Saravanan of PSCB (2,390), 13.K.Murugan of NLC (2,385), 14.Rahul Shetty of IA (2,385),15.R.G.Hegde of BSB (2,380), 16.P.Mitrakanth of NLC (2,380), 17.D.K.Sharma of LIC (2,375), 18.Shankar Roy of Railways (2,370), 19.Roktim Bandopadhyay of West Bengal (2,370), 20. R.B.Ramesh of PSCB (2,365).

Blind chess players for Worlds

MUMBAI: The first Indian team of blind chess players will represent the country in the Individual World Chess championships to be held at Brno in Czech Republic from July 3 to 13. The players have been sponsored by the Aditya Vikram Birla Memorial Trust. Swapnil Shah, Madan Bagaytkar, Sanjay Karandikar and Charudutta Jadhav will leave tonight to participate in the ninth Individual World Championships.

Raghunandan Gokhale, president of the All India Chess Federation for the blind, said Aditya Vikram Birla trust gave a cheque needed for the whole trip of four without any hesitation. The All India Chess Federation for the Blind had to return money earlier received from Bank of Baroda, he added.The four players were selected on their performance in the last nationalsfor the blind. If they finish in top six in the World Championships, then they get the opportunity to play Olympiad to be held from September 24 at Elista, Kalmikiya Republic.

The team will have Fide Master Sajandas Joshi as the coach and Ramakant Satam as the manager.