Veselin Topalov

Veselin Aleksandrov Topalov (pronounced ; Весели́н Алексáндров Топа́лов; born 15 March 1975) is a Bulgarian chess grandmaster and former FIDE World Chess Champion.

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 and won in Terrassa.

He shared first at the Budapest Zonal group B in 1993 but struggled at the Biel Interzonal, scoring 5.5/13.

Topalov has competed at nine Chess Olympiads (1994–2000, 2008–2016), winning board one gold in 2014 and scoring best overall performance in 1994.

He also won in Linares, Corus, Dortmund, Stavanger and Pearl Spring tournaments.

Topalov is married and has two daughters.

Topalov was born in Ruse, Bulgaria.

His father taught him to play chess at the age of eight.

Topalov quickly established himself as a chess prodigy.

At age 12, Topalov began working with the controversial Silvio Danailov, a relationship that continues today.

He made his Olympiad debut in Moscow 1994, leading Bulgaria to a fourth-place, defeating Garry Kasparov on board one.

Over the next ten years Topalov ascended the world chess rankings.

He played in Linares 1994 (6½/13), Linares 1995 (8/13), Amsterdam 1995.

In a strong run of tournament performances in 1996 he placed third at Wijk aan Zee, tied for first at Amsterdam, Vienna and Madrid, won outright at Novgorod and shared first in Dos Hermanas.

As early as 1996, he was being invited to events for the world's elite such as Las Palmas (5/10), the first category 21 tournament, played in December 1996, with Kasparov, Anand, Kramnik and Karpov participating.

The next year he won at Antwerp and Madrid.

Topalov's loss to reigning Classical World Champion Garry Kasparov at the 1999 Corus chess tournament is generally hailed as one of the greatest games ever played.

Kasparov later said, "He looked up. Perhaps there was a sign from above that Topalov would play a great game today. It takes two, you know, to do that."

In the knockout tournaments for the FIDE World Chess Championship, he reached the last 16 in 1999, the quarter-finals in 2000, the final 16 in 2001, and the semifinals in the 2004 tournament.

In 2001, he shared the overall title at Amber Melody and won at Dortmund.

In 2002, he lost the final of the Dortmund Candidates Tournament (for the right to challenge for the rival Classical World Chess Championship) to Peter Leko.

Topalov tied for first at the 2002 NAO Chess Masters in Cannes and won at Benidorm in 2003.

Topalov became FIDE World Chess Champion by winning the FIDE World Chess Championship 2005.

He won the 2005 Chess Oscar.

Topalov scored his first major success at Linares 2005, tying for 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 at Mtel Masters.

Based on his rating, Topalov was invited to the eight-player, double round-robin FIDE World Chess Championship in San Luis, Argentina, in September–October 2005.

Scoring 6½/7 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 1½ points to become FIDE World Chess Champion.

The average rating of the field in the championship was 2739, and Topalov's performance rating was 2890.

He lost his title in the World Chess Championship 2006 against Vladimir Kramnik.

He was ranked world number one from April 2006 to January 2007.

In 2006 he tied for first at Corus with Anand.

On 16 April 2006, FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov announced that a match between Classical and FIDE World Champions Kramnik and Topalov would be held in September–October 2006 to re-unify the Championships after thirteen years of separation.

Kramnik defeated Topalov to become the first undisputed champion in thirteen years.

On 28 September 2006, Topalov's manager Silvio Danailov published a press release, casting suspicion on Kramnik's behaviour during the games.

The Bulgarian team made a public statement that Kramnik visited his private bathroom (the only place without any audio or video surveillance) unreasonably often, about fifty times per game (a number that FIDE officials later claimed to be exaggerated ) and made the most significant decisions in the game in the bathroom.

He regained the top ranking in October 2008 until January 2010.

His peak rating was 2816 in July 2015, placing him joint-tenth on the list of highest FIDE-rated players of all time.

He challenged Viswanathan Anand at the World Chess Championship 2010, losing 6½–5½.