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Veselin Topalov

Veselin Topalov born 15 March 1975 is a Bulgarian Grandmaster and 19th World Champion. In the January 2007 FIDE rating list, he is ranked third with an ELO 2780.His current trainer and manager is International Master Silvio Danailov.

Topalov became the World Champion by winning the FIDE World Chess Championship 2005. He was awarded the 2005 Chess Oscar. In October 2006, Topalov had the second highest Elo rating of all time (2813).

Career

Topalov was born in Rousse, Bulgaria. His father taught him to play chess at the age of eight. In 1989 he won the World Under 14 Championship in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, and in 1990 won the silver medal at the World Under 16 Championship in Singapore. He became a Grandmaster in 1992.

Topalov has been the leader of the Bulgarian national team since 1994. At the 1994 Chess Olympiad in Moscow he led the Bulgarians to a fourth-place finish.

Over the next ten years he won a number of tournaments, and ascended the world chess rankings. As early as 1996, he was being invited to "supergrandmaster" events for the world's élite. In the knockout tournaments for the World Chess Championship, he reached the last 16 in 1999, the quarter-finals in 2000, the final 16 in 2001, and the semi-finals in the 2004.

Topalov scored his first "super-tournament" success at Linares 2005, tying for the first place with Garry Kasparov (though losing on tiebreak rules), and defeating Kasparov in the last round, in what was to be Kasparov's last tournament game before his retirement. He followed this up with a one point victory (+4 =5 −1) at the M-Tel Masters 2005, ahead of Viswanathan Anand, Vladimir Kramnik, Ruslan Ponomariov, Michael Adams, and Judit Polgar. The average rating of the participants was 2744, making this super-GM, double round-robin tournament the strongest in 2005.

On the strength of his rating, Topalov was invited to the eight-player, double round-robin World Chess Championship in San Luis, Argentina, in September-October 2005. Scoring 6.5/7 in the first cycle, Topalov had virtually clinched the tournament at the halfway mark, before drawing every game in the second cycle to win by 1.5 points and become World Champion. The average rating of the field in the championship was 2739, and Topalov's performance rating was 2890!

In May 2006, Topalov defended his M-Tel Masters title in the 2006 edition of the tournament, coming first with 6.5, a half point ahead of Gata Kamsky (whom he beat 2-0).

In September –October 2006 Topalov played Vladimir Kramnik in a twelve-game title unification match. The match was drawn at 6-6, but Topalov lost the tie-break 2.5-1.5.

In January 2007, Topalov finished in joint first place (ahead of Kramnik, who finished 4th) at the Category 19 Corus Tournament along with Levon Aronian and Teimour Radjabov.

Traditionally, defeated champions enjoy the right to a return match against the new champion. In the 2006 reunification match, Topalov lost his berth in the 2007 world championship tournament as incumbent FIDE champion to Kramnik. However, as part of the reunification process, both Topalov and Kramnik were granted special privileges in the 2008-09 championship cycle.

Kramnik, who lost the title when Viswanathan Anand won the 2007 tournament, will meet Anand in a title match in 2008. Meanwhile, Topalov will play a match against Gata Kamsky, winner of the 2007 FIDE World Cup. The winner of this match will qualify for the 2009 world championship match against the 2008 world champion. 

 

Topalov vs the other participants (classic chess)

Name	Total	Win	Loss	Draw	View	Download
Ivanchuk	29	8	7	14
Aronian	9	3	2	4
Radjabov	2	0	0	2
Cheparinov	0	0	0	0
Bu Xiangzhi	0	0	0	0

 

 

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