10.Jeffery Xiong, USA (rating 2666)

Jeffery Xiong (born October 30, 2000) is a United States chess Grandmaster and child prodigy. In February 2016 he entered the top 10 players in the world under age 20 and a month later, he reached a FIDE rating of 2600 for the first time. In July 2016, Xiong won the B group (“Premier”) of the Capablanca Memorial and the US Closed Junior Championship. The following month, he won the World Junior Chess Championship, held in Bhubaneswar, India with a round to spare.

9. Pavel Eljanov, UKR (2762)

Pavel Eljanov is born 10 May 1983 is a Ukrainian chess Grandmaster. He has won two team gold medals and one individual silver medal at the Chess Olympiads.He acted as a second for Boris Gelfand in the World Chess Championship 2007, Candidates Matches 2011 and World Chess Championship 2012, for Magnus Carlsen in the World Chess Championship 2013, and for Mariya Muzychuk in the Women’s World Chess Championship 2016. He won strong Isle of Man Open in 2016. He was playing an important role for the European Club Cup champion team Alkaloid.

8. Hikaru Nakamura, USA (2779)

Hikaru Nakamura is born December 9, 1987, is an American chess Grandmaster. He is a four-time United States Chess Champion, who won the 2011 edition of Tata Steel Group A and represented the United States at five Chess Olympiads, winning two team bronze medals. He has also written a book about bullet chess called Bullet Chess: One Minute to Mate. His peak USCF rating was 2900 in August 2015. In October 2015, he reached his peak FIDE rating of 2816, which ranked him second in the world. In May 2014, when FIDE began publishing official rapid and blitz chess ratings, Nakamura ranked number one in the world on both lists. In February 2016, Nakamura won the Gibraltar Chess Festival for the second year in a row, scoring 8/10 (+6-0=4) and beating Maxime Vachier-Lagrave on tiebreaks. In February 2016, Hikaru won the Zurich Chess Challenge for the second year in a row. He tied with Viswanathan Anand on the number of points; however, Nakamura was declared the overall winner.

7.Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, AZ (2768)

Shakhriyar Mamedyarov  is born 12 April 1985, also known as Shah and Shak, is an Azerbaijani chess Grandmaster. Mamedyarov is a two-time World Junior Champion, and gold-medallist at the 2012 Chess Olympiad and European Team Championships in 2009 and 2013. He also competed in the FIDE Candidates Matches in 2011, won Tal Memorial on two occasions and won the World Rapid Championship in 2013. In June 2016, Mamedyarov won the 3rd Shamkir Chess Tournament, the Vugar Gashimov Memorial. He defeated both top seeds Fabiano Caruana and Anish Giri in the last two rounds, which put him in a tiebreak situation with Caruana. He defeated Caruana in the tiebreak, thus giving him tournament victory.

6.Vladimir Kramnik, RUS (2809)

Vladimir Borisovich Kramnik born 25 June 1975 is a Russian chess Grandmaster. He was the Classical World Chess Champion from 2000 to 2006, and the undisputed World Chess Champion from 2006 to 2007. He has won three team gold medals and three individual medals at Chess Olympiads. In October 2000, he defeated Garry Kasparov in a match played in London, and became the Classical World Chess Champion. Kramnik participated in the Tal Memorial (a ten-player round-robin tournament) in Moscow from 26 September – 6 October. He finished sixth with 4.5 / 9 in the opening blitz round-robin on 25 September, meaning that he was given one more game to play with the black pieces than with the white in the classical tournament. He finished seventh in the classical tournament, again with 4.5 / 9

5.Wesley So, USA (2794)

Wesley Barbasa So (born October 9, 1993) is a Filipino chess Grandmaster representing the United States. A former chess prodigy, So became the youngest player to pass 2600 Elo rating in October 2008, breaking the record previously held by Magnus Carlsen. In early 2013, So passed 2700 rating and in February 2015 he entered the World top 10 after tying for second place at the 2015 Tata Steel Chess Tournament. So won Group C in the 2009 edition of the Corus Chess Tournament and is a three-time Philippines Chess Champion. He also won the 2015 Bilbao Chess Masters and 2016 Sinquefield Cup. In March 2016, So received the Samford Fellowship, which identifies and assists the best young American chess masters. The fellowship granted So $42,000 to train for and play in top tournaments. Wesley So won the London Chess Classic and Grand Chess Tour 2016.

4.Fabiano Caruana, USA (2823)

Fabiano Luigi Caruana (born July 30, 1992) is an Italian-American chess Grandmaster, former chess prodigy, and at various times the No. 2 ranked player in the world. He played for the US until 2005, when he switched to Italy, and he subsequently switched back to the US in 2015. He is the current US champion. On July 15, 2007, Caruana became a Grandmaster (GM) at the age of 14 years, 11 months, 20 days—the youngest Grandmaster in the history of both Italy and the United States (his US record was beaten in October 2009 by Ray Robson). In October 2014, he achieved an Elo rating of 2844, becoming the third highest rated player in history. On April 25, Fabiano Caruana became US Chess Champion for the first time, after defeating IM Akshat Chandra in the last round of the US Chess Championship. He finished the tournament with 8.5 points out of 11 games, and went undefeated. At the 2016 Tata Steel Chess Tournament Caruana shared second (along with Ding Liren) with a score of 8 points out of 13 (+5-2=6). As part of the qualification cycle for the World Chess Championship 2016, Fabiano Caruana participated in the Candidates Tournament 2016, held in Moscow, Russia from March 10–30 in the Central Telegraph (Центральный телеграф) Building. The lineup of the tournament included Viswanathan Anand, Hikaru Nakamura, Sergey Karjakin, Peter Svidler, Veselin Topalov, Anish Giri, and Levon Aronian. In the final round, Caruana had Black against Sergey Karjakin in a winner-takes-all game. A complex position developed in which he made a mistake and was eventually defeated, making Karjakin the official challenger. Caruana eventually finished with a +1 score.

3.Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, FRA (2804)

Maxime Vachier-Lagrave is born 21 October 1990, sometimes referred to as MVL, is a French chess Grandmaster and the 2009 World Junior Chess Champion. He is currently the No. 1 ranked player in France and the third highest rated player in the world. Vachier-Lagrave is a three-time French champion (2007, 2011, shared 2012) and four-time winner of the Biel Grandmaster Tournament (2009, 2013, 2014, 2015). He also holds a university degree in mathematics, which he earned in 2010. He was winner of the 2016 Dortmund Sparkassen Chess Meeting with 5.5 points out of 7. Ahead of multiple-time previous winners Vladimir Kramnik and Fabiano Caruana.

2.Sergey Karjakin, RUS (2785)

Sergey Karjakin is born 12 January 1990, Simferopol, Crimea, is a Russian (formerly representing Ukraine) chess Grandmaster. He is a former chess prodigy and holds the record for the world’s youngest Grandmaster, having qualified for this title at the age of 12 years and 7 months. In March 2016, Karjakin won the Candidates Tournament 2016 to become the official challenger for the World Chess Championship. He narrowly lost the championship match to Magnus Carlsen in November 2016.

1.Magnus Carlsen, NOR (2840)

Sven Magnus Carlsen, born 30 November 1990 is a Norwegian chess Grandmaster, and the current World Chess Champion. Carlsen was a chess prodigy. He became a chess Grandmaster in 2004 at the age of 13 years, 148 days, which made him the third-youngest Grandmaster in history. In November 2013 Carlsen became World Champion by defeating Viswanathan Anand in the World Chess Championship 2013. On the May 2014 FIDE rating list, Carlsen reached his peak rating of 2882, which is the highest in history. He successfully defended his title in November 2014, once again defeating Anand. In 2014, Carlsen also won the World Rapid Championship and the World Blitz Championship, thus holding all three world championship titles. Carlsen won the 4th annual Norway Chess tournament in 2016. In November 2016 he successfully defended his world title against Sergey Karjakin.