HA NOI (VNS)– Top Vietnamese chess player Le Quang Liem continued to scale the world chess rankings, moving up one place to 39th in January, according to the latest announcement of the World Chess Federation (FIDE).

With an unchanged Elo rating of 2705, two-time Aeroflot Open champion Liem became the fourth best player in Asia, following closely behind India's Viswannathan Anand (Elo 2772) and China's Wang Hao (Elo 2752) and Ding Laren (Elo 2709).

Norwegian Super Grandmaster Magnus Carlsen remained on top of the world with an Elo rating of 2861, followed by Vladimir Kramnik (Elo 2810) from Russia and Levon Aronian (Elo 2802) from Armenia.

In the women's standings, Pham Le Thao Nguyen, rated 2426, moved up one place to 51st.

In the top 100 of the FIDE girls' rankings, Viet Nam has three representatives: Nguyen Thi Mai Hung (Elo 2272), ranked 18th, Hoang Thi Nhu Y (Elo 2245), 28th and Vo Thi Kim Phung (Elo 2193), 52nd. – VNS