John is a young American player, born in 2001, thus younger than Sevian even, who gained a staggering 280 Elo to leap from 2258 Elo to .... 2538 Elo in a single bound. He was not even a FIDE master yet. This places him within 15 Elo of Samuel Sevian, the hitherto owner of the US spotlight, and six Elo behind Jeffery Xiong.
Before dismissing this as just one of the oddities that crop up with the K-factor at 40, the actual results that made this rating possible need to be acknowledged. This was not achieved by playing some unknown tournament scoring massively against lower-rated players. This was achieved playing the DC International, the World Open, and the New York International (won by Gata Kamsky). In those three tournaments he faced 13 international masters, scoring 8.0/13, and five grandmasters against whom he scored 3.0/5. His performance was consistent in all three events.
See full article.
Before dismissing this as just one of the oddities that crop up with the K-factor at 40, the actual results that made this rating possible need to be acknowledged. This was not achieved by playing some unknown tournament scoring massively against lower-rated players. This was achieved playing the DC International, the World Open, and the New York International (won by Gata Kamsky). In those three tournaments he faced 13 international masters, scoring 8.0/13, and five grandmasters against whom he scored 3.0/5. His performance was consistent in all three events.
See full article.
RSS Feed