Chess

Recent British successes are well reflected in the latest Fide rating list, which includes three of our grandmasters among the world's top 20. The most surprising thing, however, is that Nigel Short is now only the third most highly rated Briton. Here is the list:

1. Garry Kasparov 2820

2. Vladimir Kramnik 2770

3. Viswanathan Anand 2765

4= Veselin Topalov 2745

4= Anatoly Karpov 2745

6. Vassily Ivanchuk 2725

7. Gata Kamsky 2720

8. Alexander Belyavsky 2710

9. Alexei Shirov 2700

10. Boris Gelfand 2695

11= Michael Adams 2680

11= Valery Salov 2680

13= Kiril Georgiev 2670

13= Judit Polgar 2670

13= Yevgeny Bareyev 2670

16. Matthew Sadler 2665

17= Vladimir Akopyan 2660

17= Alexei Alexandrov 2660

17= Nigel Short 2660

17= Peter Svidler 2660

17= Joel Lautier 2660

Michael Adams's rise to 11th place is a fair reflection of his gradually improving results over the past couple of years, but Matthew Sadler's advance comes as more of a surprise. The huge scores he has made for England in the recent Olympiad and European Team Championship have propelled him up the list and should now earn him invitations to top-class events, where he will have a chance to compete against the world's best.

Since their world title match in 1993, Nigel Short has had a wretched time playing against Kasparov. Here is their latest encounter from Novgorod - another win for the world's number one. At the end after 31...hxg6 32.h7+ Kh8 33.Qf6+ Kxh7 34.Qxf7+ Kh8 35.Qf6+ the white attack breaks through.

White: Garry Kasparov

Black: Nigel Short

1 e4 e6 17 Rg3 Rf7

2 d4 d5 18 h5 Nd8

3 Nc3 Bb4 19 c3 Rf8

4 e5 c5 20 Kf1 Rc4

5 a3 Bxc3+ 21 Kg1 Nf7

6 bxc3 Qc7 22 a4 Rfc8

7 Qg4 f5 23 Qb1 Nc6

8 Qg3 cxd4 24 Qd1 Ne7

9 cxd4 Ne7 25 h6 g6

10 Bd2 0-0 26 Qh5 Rxa4

11 Bd3 b6 27 Rxa4 Qxa4

12 Ne2 Ba6 28 Nxe6 Qc2

13 Nf4 Qd7 29 Qh4 f4

14 h4 Bxd3 30 Bxf4 Nf5

15 Qxd3 Nbc6 31 Rxg6+ 1-0

16 Rh3 Rac8