The September FIDE rating list carries the usual reshuffling at the top. Wesley So is back in the world top 5 for the first time in nearly four years, off a Sinquefield Cup win and a third-place finish at the Grand Chess Tour Finals. Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu re-enters the top 10 at 8th after taking the 2026 GCT title. But the number worth sitting with is further down the list.
Modipalli Deekshitha, an Indian teenager, gained 469 rating points across four tournaments this cycle. That’s the largest jump FIDE has recorded since it began tracking rating changes. The stretch moved her to 23rd on the women’s list and 3rd among junior women.
Rating history gives that number context it wouldn’t otherwise have. Big single-cycle jumps happen, usually to players who were badly underrated to begin with and have just proven it against stronger opposition in a short window. What sets Deekshitha’s run apart is the scale. 469 points isn’t a good tournament or two; it’s a full reclassification of where a player belongs, compressed into one rating period instead of the two or three years that kind of climb more typically takes.
The rest of the gainers’ list underscores how unusual that is by comparison. Abhimanyu Puranik picked up 26 points to reach 2629. Mahammad Muradli gained 23 to hit 2653. Those are the normal-sized moves that make up a typical monthly list — Deekshitha’s is on a different axis entirely.
The list has other quieter stories worth flagging alongside the headline names. Tan Zhongyi rejoined the women’s top 5 after a seven-month absence, following her win at the Cairns Cup. Alice Lee finished runner-up there and picked up her first Grandmaster norm in the process, a 23-point gain that reads modest next to Deekshitha’s but marks its own kind of turning point.
Brandon Jacobson debuted in the open top 100 after winning the 50th Open Internacional d’Escacs Vila de Sitges. It’s a reminder that the monthly list isn’t just a leaderboard reshuffle for players already established at the top. It’s also where results in a mid-tier open tournament in Spain translate into a permanent, visible marker of a career stepping up a level.
Individually, none of these moves changes who’s world number one. Collectively, they’re the clearest evidence FIDE publishes each month of where competitive momentum in chess is actually shifting. This month, the standout signal in the noise is a teenager who reclassified her own career in the space of four tournaments.
Original source: FIDE
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