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Veselin Topalov (Bulgarian: born Ruse, Bulgaria, March 15, 1975) is a Bulgarian chess grandmaster. In the July 2005 FIDE rating list, he was number two in the world (tied with Anand) with an Elo rating of 2788.
He was taught the rules of chess when he was eight years old by his father. In 1989 he won the World Under-14 Championship in Aguadilja, 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 leader of the Bulgarian national team since 1994. At the Chess Olympiad in 1994 in Moscow he beat Garry Kasparov (see below), and led the Bulgarians to a fourth-place finish. He has won a number of tournaments, and at the FIDE World Championship in New Delhi in 2000 reached the quarter-finals.
Topalov won (+4 =5 1) the MTel Masters 2005 tournament, held 11 May to 22 May in Sofia, Bulgaria. The victory was achieved by a last round win over Vladimir Kramnik in an unusual game featuring multiple blunders by both sides. Vishwanathan Anand finished second, back by one point, in a field of six including Ruslan Ponomariov, Michael Adams, and Judit Polgar. The average rating of the participants was 2744, making this super-GM, double round robbin tournament the strongest in 2005.
Topalov has a negative record against Kasparov, but has beaten him on a few occasions, including the last game Kasparov played before he announced his retirement at Linares 2005, and this encounter, played at the 1994 Chess Olympiad when Topalov was just 19 years old (moves given in algebraic chess notation):
Topalov-Kasparov, Moscow Olympiad 1994
1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Be3 e6 7.g4 h6 8.f4 Nc6 9.Be2 e5 10.Nf5 g6 11.Ng3 exf4 12.Bxf4 Be6 13.Rf1 Rc8 14.h3 Qb6 15.Qd2 Bg7 16.Bxd6 Nxg4 17.Bxg4 Qxb2 18.e5 Nxe5 19.Rb1 Qxc3 20.Qxc3 Rxc3 21.Bxe6 fxe6 22.Rxb7 Nc4 23.Bb4 Re3+ 24.Ne2 Be5 25.Rff7 Rxh3 26.Nd4 Re3+ 27.Kf1 Re4 28.Rfe7+ Kd8 29.Nc6+ 1-0
Topalov also has the curious distinction of furnishing what are considered to be the finest games of Karpov’s and Kasparov’s careers by having lost to them in spectacular fashion, first to Karpov at Linares in 1994, and later to Kasparov at Corus in Wijk aan Zee in 1999.
Notable tournament victories
Madrid 1994, 1996, 1997
Dos Hermanas 1996
Amsterdam 1996
Vienna 1996
Novgorod 1996
Antwerp 1997
Monaco 2001
Dortmund 2001
Linares 2005 (joint first with Kasparov)
Sofia 2005 (a point ahead of Anand)
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