Gukesh back in top-10 March 2026 rankings after FIDE rectifies error

The reigning world champion Gukesh Dommaraju climbed back to top-10 of the world rankings for the month of March 2026 after FIDE rectified an error in calculation on Monday.

“Due to an oversight in the approval process, the Russian Chess Crown match was included in the March 2026 FIDE Rating List in breach of these regulations,” a statement from FIDE read.

The regulation cited here is Article 0.2.1 of FIDE Rating Regulations, which reads that a tournament and its playing schedule must be registered not later than 30 days before the tournament starts, if one of the players in the tournament is rated in excess of 2700, or a female player rated in excess of 2500.

“Once the error was identified, the Qualification Commission (QC) removed the event from the FIDE Rating System in accordance with the applicable rules,” the statement from FIDE read.

“As a result, Sergey Karjakin’s status has been changed to inactive, and he has been removed from the list of active players in the #FIDERating list,” the statement further added.

Karjakin’s status being changed to inactive meant that Gukesh, who was pushed to world No 11 in the rankings, shot up to world No 10 after the correction.

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