Fresh off a victory in Bilbao, Topalov has taken the top spot on FIDE's October Ratings list. Alexander Morozevich is second, a point ahead of Vassily Ivanchuk and Magnus Carlsen.

It may surprise many chess fans to find Viswanathan Anand and Vladimir Kramnik -- the two contestants in the upcoming World Championship match -- ranked 5th and 6th respectively. Two things to keep in mind:

• Anand and Kramnik may not be on top, but they are both within 20 points of the leader. Right now, there's a lot of parity at the top of chess.
• As has been mentioned by many commentators, it's likely that both players have been holding back on opening preparation, saving that instead for their match.

With such a tightly packed group, it shouldn't be a surprise if any of the top six are first on the next ratings list. That said, it seems only a matter of time before young Magnus Carlsen becomes the clear #1 player in the world, barring a sudden halt in his improvement.

With four weeks remaining in the United States Chess League regular season, two teams have taken clear leads in their respective divisions.

The Queens Pioneers flew out of the gate with 5 straight wins before falling to the Carolina Cobras in week six. Still, at 5-1, Queens holds a full point lead over the New Jersey Knockouts at the top of the Eastern Division standings. At the end of the regular season, the top four teams from each division make the players. Carolina and the Boston Blitz round out the top four in the East.

Queens has been led by International Master Alex Lenderman, who has posted an impressive 5-0 start to his season, and currently leads the league MVP race.

Over in the Western Division, the San Francisco Mechanics stand alone at the top with a 4.5-1.5 record. The rest of the division is tightly packed, with six teams fighting for three more playoff spots. The Dallas Destiny and the Seattle Sluggers are in the best positions at 3.5-2.5, but even the 2-4 Tennessee Tempo have to feel like they have a shot at making it to the postseason.

If you'd like to catch the action live, USCL matches are played weekly on the Internet Chess Club, on Monday and Wednesday nights. Or, keep reading this blog to get weekly updates on the race for the playoffs. Who do you think will find their way to the postseason?

A fascinating chess match has begun between astronaut Greg Chamitoff -- currently aboard the International Space Station -- and us mere Earthlings. Organized by NASA and the United States Chess Federation (USCF), the match allows the public to vote on Earth's moves, while Chamitoff will move whenever his workload permits him to play; the goal is to have one move made each weekday. Chamitoff has the white pieces.

Earth won't be playing without some guidance. Before voting begins on each move, the chess club members from Stevenson Elementary School in Bellevue, Washington -- the K-3 national champions - will narrow Earth's choices to four, from which the public will choose the one move that is played.

The game has already begun with Chamitoff playing 1. d4, and Earth responding with Nf6. You can follow all the action and participate in voting from the USCF's special page devoted to the game.

Okay, it wasn't just any human, but rather Grandmaster Vadim Milov, who at a hefty 2705 is the highest-rated player to play a match against computer program Rybka. Also, it wasn't a match on even terms - Milov took some handicaps that made the match just a bit more fair.

For the first two games of the match, there was only the smallest of handicaps - Rybka played black in both games, instead of switching colors with Milov. Still, Rybka scored 1.5 out of 2 in these even games with the black pieces. Milov then scored 1.5/2 in the next phase of the match, where Rybka gave the classic "pawn and move" handicap - playing black and removing the pawn on f7 before the start of the game.

The second half of the match was played with odds of the exchange: Rybka played white without the a1 rook, while Milov was black without the b8 knight. Milov won one of the four games, while the rest ended in draws. The final score was narrowly in Milov's favor: 4.5-3.5.

What does this mean for the future of human-computer matches? We're likely to see many more where human grandmasters take small-to-moderate handicaps in order to keep things competitive, and humans will certainly have fair chances to win those matches, no matter how good the computers get. On the other hand, is it still possible for a human to challenge Rybka or another top computer program in an even match? Most would say it's doubtful that the humans can hang in there, but Milov thinks he'd have a chance against Rybka - provided he could have white every game and the financial incentives were large enough to make extensive preparation worthwhile. This might be an overly optimistic assessment, but I doubt we've seen the last of human-computer matches on even terms.

Let me know your thoughts: do you think we'll ever see a top human play a top computer to at least a draw in a match again?