Azerbaijani chess players climb up global ranking list among countries

The International Chess Federation (FIDE) has released its updated global rankings for national men’s and women’s teams for April, with Azerbaijan’s players demonstrating a strong performance in the standings.

Azerbaijan’s men’s team now has an average rating of 2626, moving up one spot to 7th in the world, as Caliber.Az reports. The women’s national team has managed to defend their position of 11th place with an average rating of 2303.

Among individual players, grandmaster Shakhriyar Mamedyarov leads the men’s rankings with 2717 points, while international master Ulviyya Fataliyeva tops the women’s list with 2450 points. She is the 2024 European Women’s Individual Chess Champion and Azerbaijan’s national women’s champion for 2026.

In the combined (mixed) rankings, Azerbaijan holds on to 9th place with a rating of 2464.

Globally, the United States leads the men’s rankings with 2724 points, while China tops both the women’s standings (2490) and the mixed rankings (2578).

The rankings are based on the average Elo rating of each country’s top 10 players. The Elo system measures a player’s relative strength compared to others in games such as chess. It was developed by Arpad Elo, a physics professor in the United States and a chess master, who sought to improve how the US Chess Federation evaluated player performance.

By Nazrin Sadigova