Samvel Ter-Sahakyan emerged as the new leader of the FIDE Circuit race following his victory in the 83rd Armenian Championship. The champion picked up 7.4 points and edged out the winner of the Rilton Cup, IM Pranesh M, to the second position. The runner-up of the Armenian Championship, Manuel Petrosyan, closes out the top three.
FIDE Circuit Race Top 10 as of January 24, 2023:
| 1 | Ter-Sahakyan, Samvel | 2605 | ARM | 7.40 |
| 2 | Pranesh M | 2475 | IND | 6.76 |
| 3 | Petrosyan, Manuel | 2632 | ARM | 5.92 |
| 4 | Kucuksari, Kaan | 2487 | SWE | 5.24 |
| 5 | Hovhannisyan, Robert | 2597 | ARM | 5.00 |
| 6 | Meshkovs, Nikita | 2576 | LAT | 4.90 |
| 7 | Harutyunyan, Tigran K. | 2511 | ARM | 4.63 |
| 8 | Urkedal, Frode Olav Olsen | 2536 | NOR | 3.55 |
| 9 | Galperin, Platon | 2534 | UKR | 3.21 |
| 10 | Gorshtein, Ido | 2498 | ISR | 2.87 |
At the end of 2022, FIDE Council approved a major reform of the qualification paths to the Candidates Tournament – the event that decides the challenger for the World Championship match.
One of the paths is the newly created FIDE Circuit (Path D). The player accumulating the most points during 2023 in eligible tournaments qualifies for the 2024 Candidates Tournament. The final score is calculated as the sum of the player’s five highest results.
