FIDE Rating List - January 2018

Another January means another download of the FIDE Rating List (FRL). Ratings are an important part of organized chess and while some people watch the rating lists closely, I look at them once a year, always in January. Starting with the page Download FRL January 2018 (ratings.fide.com), I selected the same file as in previous years:-

Download STANDARD rating list
TXT format (08 Jan 2018, Sz: 6.58 MB)

Last year I managed to write two posts on the subject:-

• 2017-01-05: FIDE Rating List - January 2017
• 2017-01-19: The Lower Rating Band (incl. FOA: FIDE Online Arena)

This year I'll try to do more, even though there are always so many other chess topics competing for attention. The first 2018 FRL has over 296K players, of which over 134K are marked inactive. How does that compare with previous years? Like this:-

• 2018: >296K players; >134K marked inactive
• 2017: >265K players; >112K marked inactive
• 2016: >231K players; >96K marked inactive
• 2015: >197K players; >83K marked inactive
• 2014: >171K players; >70K marked inactive

In my next post, I'll look at which federations are included, like I did for the 'Lower Rating Band' post.