From June 2013, Gelfand won the Tal Memorial beating Alexander Morozevich, Fabiano Caruana and Hikaru Nakamura, scoring 6/9, half a point ahead of Magnus Carlsen. He gained 18 rating points and achieved his all-time highest Elo rating till that time of 2773. Gelfand bounced back from a fourth-round exit from the World Cup to Maxime Vachier-Lagrave by sharing first with Caruana in the final FIDE Grand Prix in Paris. He gained 11.9 rating points and again achieved a record personal rating of 2777. He finished fourth in the Grand Prix overall standings with 325 points missing out on a Candidates place due to his weak results in the Tashkent and Beijing events. He shared first with Caruana at the next FIDE Grand Prix event held in Baku.