# RIF rating list

RIF rating list is an official ranking system maintained by the Renju International Federation (RIF), to indicate the rankings of Renju players all over the world. The rating system was established in General Assembly 1995 of RIF. Games between Renju players in formal tournaments are counted in the calculation of the ranking list, including World Championships, European Championships, National Championships and some other important tournaments. The RIF rating list is usually updated daily. The ratings are maintained by the Qualification Commission of RIF. According to the qualification system of the World Renju Championship, all the players with at least 10 games with established players, and within the top-20 of the RIF rating list, have the tickets to take part in the qualification tournament of the World Renju Championship. The RIF rating list had been based on the Elo rating system before 2021, and was migrated to the whole-history rating system in August 2021.

## Top players

The top 20 players of the RIF rating list (updated on April 27, 2023) are listed as follows:
| Rank | Player | Rating |
| 1 | Shigeru Nakamura | 2902 |
| 2 | Lin Shu-Hsuan | 2888 |
| 3 | Vladimir Sushkov | 2846 |
| 4 | Yang Yanxi | 2842 |
| 5 | Shunsuke Kamiya | 2821 |
| 6 | Tomoharu Nakayama | 2764 |
| 7 | Li Yi | 2762 |
| 8 | Qi Guan | 2752 |
| 9 | Lin Shih-Pin | 2740 |
| 10 | Wai Chan Keong | 2727 |
| 11 | Lin Huang-Yu | 2695 |
| 12 | Dmitry Epifanov | 2688 |
| 13 | Ants Soosõrv | 2683 |
| 14 | Hwang Do-hoon | 2678 |
| 15 | Ni Zhongxing | 2667 |
| 16 | Mei Fan | 2659 |
| 17 | Maxim Orlov | 2657 |
| 18 | Ge Lingfeng | 2652 |
| 19 | Mikhail Kozhin | 2651 |
| 20 | Wang Qingqing | 2642 |

## Historical top players by year

The list of historical top 5 players by year (retrieved on December 31 every year) is listed as follows:
| Year | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | 5th |
| 1998 | Shigeru Nakamura | Kazuto Hasegawa | Norihiko Kawamura | Ando Meritee | Takashi Sagara |
| 1999 | Shigeru Nakamura | Ando Meritee | Norihiko Kawamura | Kazuto Hasegawa | Dmitry Ilyin |
| 2000 | Shigeru Nakamura | Ando Meritee | Norihiko Kawamura | Hideki Nara | Igor Sinyov |
| 2001 | Ando Meritee | Shigeru Nakamura | Norihiko Kawamura | Vladimir Sushkov | Igor Sinyov |
| 2002 | Ando Meritee | Shigeru Nakamura | Norihiko Kawamura | Vladimir Sushkov | Makoto Yamaguchi |
| 2003 | Shigeru Nakamura | Ando Meritee | Norihiko Kawamura | Vladimir Sushkov | Konstantin Chingin |
| 2004 | Shigeru Nakamura | Norihiko Kawamura | Ando Meritee | Alexandr Klimashin | Konstantin Chingin |
| 2005 | Shigeru Nakamura | Norihiko Kawamura | Ando Meritee | Kazuto Hasegawa | Konstantin Chingin |
| 2006 | Shigeru Nakamura | Kazuto Hasegawa | Norihiko Kawamura | Ando Meritee | Yusui Yamaguchi |
| 2007 | Shigeru Nakamura | Kazuto Hasegawa | Ando Meritee | Norihiko Kawamura | Yusui Yamaguchi |
| 2008 | Shigeru Nakamura | Kazuto Hasegawa | Ando Meritee | Norihiko Kawamura | Hiroshi Okabe |
| 2009 | Shigeru Nakamura | Kazuto Hasegawa | Ando Meritee | Norihiko Kawamura | Tunnet Taimla |
| 2010 | Shigeru Nakamura | Ando Meritee | Tunnet Taimla | Yuuki Oosumi | Kazuto Hasegawa |
| 2011 | Shigeru Nakamura | Ando Meritee | Cao Dong | Yang Yanxi | Yuuki Oosumi |
| 2012 | Shigeru Nakamura | Ando Meritee | Yang Yanxi | Yuuki Oosumi | Li Yi |
| 2013 | Shigeru Nakamura | Yuuki Oosumi | Yang Yanxi | Tunnet Taimla | Li Yi |
| 2014 | Shigeru Nakamura | Ando Meritee | Yang Yanxi | Yuuki Oosumi | Tunnet Taimla |
| 2015 | Ando Meritee | Yang Yanxi | Shigeru Nakamura | Yuuki Oosumi | Konstantin Chingin |
| 2016 | Shigeru Nakamura | Ando Meritee | Yang Yanxi | Konstantin Chingin | Yuuki Oosumi |
| 2017 | Ando Meritee | Shigeru Nakamura | Tomoharu Nakayama | Zhu Jianfeng | Vladimir Sushkov |
| 2018 | Shigeru Nakamura | Ando Meritee | Yang Yanxi | Konstantin Chingin | Tomoharu Nakayama |
| 2019 | Shigeru Nakamura | Yang Yanxi | Shunsuke Kamiya | Li Yi | Yuuki Oosumi |
| 2020 | Shigeru Nakamura | Yang Yanxi | Tomoharu Nakayama | Li Yi | Shunsuke Kamiya |
| 2021 | Shigeru Nakamura | Yang Yanxi | Vladimir Sushkov | Lin Shu-Hsuan | Shunsuke Kamiya |
| 2022 | Shigeru Nakamura | Lin Shu-Hsuan | Vladimir Sushkov | Yang Yanxi | Tomoharu Nakayama |