in december 2010 mcshane participated in the 8-player london chess classic tournament, which included viswanathan anand (reigning world chess champion), magnus carlsen (rated #1 for most of 2010), vladimir kramnik (former world champion) and hikaru nakamura (us champion). under a scoring system of 3 points for a win, 1 for a draw and 0 for a loss, mcshane finished joint second with anand, behind carlsen, whom mcshane had beaten in their individual game. undefeated, his event performance rating was 2838 – higher than carlsen's or anand's. in the january 2011 rating list, he overtook nigel short, to become the uk's second highest ranked player after michael adams.