The good news: World #6 Levon Aronian has completed his transfer from the Armenian federation to that of the USA (well, mostly), allowing him to represent us in the 2022 Chess Olympiad. If current ratings hold, we'd have the #4 (Caruana), #6 (Aronian), #8 (So), and #15 (Dominguez) players in the world. That's the good news of the December 2021 rating list for the United States. The bad news? Hikaru Nakamura has dropped off, as - believe it or not - he hasn't played a rated classical game in two years. (He would have been #19). I realized he hadn't played in a classical tournament in a while, but two years!?
You know what this means, of course. Rex Sinquefield has to recruit Alireza Firouzja to play for the U.S. - it's his patriotic duty!