Some Chess Trivia

As of 10/1/2004, the list of "super-GMs" (those rated 2700+) numbers 15:
1 GM Kasparov, Garry (RUS) 2813
2 GM Anand, Viswanathan (IND) 2781
3 GM Kramnik, Vladimir (RUS) 2760
4 GM Morozevich, Alexander (RUS) 2758
5 GM Topalov, Veselin (BUL) 2757
6 GM Leko, Peter (HUN) 2743
7 GM Adams, Michael (ENG) 2740
8 GM Svidler, Peter (RUS) 2735
9 GM Polgar, Judit (HUN) 2728
10 GM Shirov, Alexei (ESP) 2726
11 GM Bacrot, Etienne (FRA) 2718
12 GM Bareev, Evgeny (RUS) 2715
13 GM Ponomariov, Ruslan (UKR) 2710
14 GM Ivanchuk, Vassily (UKR) 2705
15 GM Grischuk, Alexander (RUS) 2704

The only players ever to break a 2800 rating are Kasparov and Kramnik. The only players ever to have been #1 in the FIDE rating list between 1976 and 2004 are Karpov, Kasparov and Kramnik. Since Karpov fell out of the top three, the only players to have held any of the top three slots are Kasparov, Kramnik and Anand.

Karpov currently stands at #23 with a rating of 2682. At age 53, he is the oldest player in the Top 100 list.

The highest Elo tournament performance rating ever recorded was 2977, earned by Karpov at Linares 1994. He was undefeated and earned 11 points out of 13 possible (the best world-class tournament winning percentage since Alekhine won San Remo 1930), beating second-place Kasparov and Shirov by 2.5 points.

The former Soviet Union or Russia has won the Chess Olympiad every year since 1952 (the first time they participated), with the exception of 1976 (which the Soviet bloc boycotted, and the USA won) and 1978 (when they came in second behind Hungary). In 1992 right after the Soviet Union broke up, instead of one team there were 12 teams. None of these countries finished with a minus score and three of them took Gold (Russia), Silver (Uzbekhistan), and Bronze (Armenia).