Age championships

In 1989, he won the World Under-14 championship in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico. In 1990 he won a silver medal in the World Under-16 Championship in Singapore.

World Championships

In the knockout tournaments for the FIDE World Chess Championship, Topalov was seeded into the second round in Groningen in 1998, and lost to Jeroen Piket. Again seeded into the second round at the championships in Las Vegas in 1999, Topalov reached the last 16 defeating Ruslan Ponomariov and Lev Psakhis before bowing out to Vladimir Kramnik. In New Delhi and Tehran in 2000, he reached the quarter-finals in 2000 – again from a second round start - defeating Andrei Kharlov, Kiril D Georgiev and Alexey Dreev before losing to Michael Adams. In 2002, he defeated Juan Facundo Pierrot, Giovanni Vescovi and Zhong Zhang before losing to Shirov. He reached the semi-finals in the FIDE World Championship Knockout Tournament (2004) in Tripoli, defeating Tarik Abulhul, Aleksander Delchev, Sergei Movsesian, Zdenko Kozul and Andrei Kharlov in the earlier rounds before losing to eventual winner Rustam Kasimdzhanov.

He also took part in the 2002 Dortmund Candidates' tournament to determine a challenger for World Classical Champion Kramnik, but lost the finals match to Peter Leko.

On the strength of his rating, Topalov was invited to the eight-player, double round-robin FIDE World Championship Tournament (2005) 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. In 2006 he lost his title to Kramnik in the reunification Kramnik-Topalov World Championship Match (2006) played in Elista, under the auspices of FIDE. By losing the reunification match, Topalov lost his chance to compete in the FIDE World Championship Tournament (2007) . Danailov expressed a desire for a rematch between Topalov and Kramnik, proposing a match in March 2007, though no such match took place. The issue was settled in June 2007 when Topalov (as well as Kramnik) was granted special privileges in the 2008-09 championship cycle. Topalov was given direct entry to a "Challenger Match" against the winner of the World Chess Cup (2007) , Gata Kamsky. The Topalov-Kamsky Match (2009) (the Challenger Match) took place in February 2009 in Hall 6 of NDK Sofia. Topalov won that match 4½-2½ and qualified to play against the World Champion Viswanathan Anand for the World Chess Champion title, but he lost the Anand-Topalov World Chess Championship (2010) by 6½-5½. Topalov automatically qualified for the World Championship Candidates (2011) for the World Chess Championship 2012, where he was the top seed. He faced 8th seeded Gata Kamsky in Kazan in Russia and lost his match 1.5-2.5 (+0 =3 -1), and was thereby eliminated from the 2012 World Championship cycle. He declined to participate in the World Cup (2011) and there was speculation about his future Championship intentions.

Late in 2012, Topalov rejoined the championship circuit from which he had been noticeably absent to take =1st alongside Boris Gelfand and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov at the 1st FIDE Grand Prix London (2012) of the 2012-2013 series, which was held in London. His score of 7/11 (+3 =8 -0; TPR 2834) netted him the 140 points to give a flying start to his 2014 World Championship campaign. A superb follow up at the FIDE Grand Prix Zug (2013), the 3rd event in the GP series, saw him take outright 1st with 8/11 (+5 =6) with a stellar performance rating for the event of 2924. It also added 170 Grand Prix points to his tally to take him to the lead with 310 points. His official rating also qualifies him to participate in the 2013 World Cup if he so chooses.

Tournaments

Topalov first major tournament wins were Terrassa 1992 and Budapest zt-B 1993. He played in Linares 1994 (6½/13), Linares 1995 (8/13), Amsterdam 1995, and won at Polanica Zdroj and Elenite in 1995. In March 1996, he won Amsterdam (coming =1st with Garry Kasparov), Vienna (ahead of Anatoly Karpov), Novgorod, and Dos Hermanas (1st-2nd with Kramnik). In 1996, he was invited to Las Palmas, the first category 21 tournament, where he scored 5/10, in a field including Kasparov, Anand, Kramnik and Karpov. In 1996 he also took a series of top-level tournament wins-- Madrid and Dos Hermanas in May, Novgorod in July, Vienna in August, as well as Leon - to firmly establish himself among the world's leading players. Between 1997 and 2003, Topalov continued his tournament successes, winning at Antwerp 1997, Madrid 1997, Monaco 2001, Dortmund 2001 (joint first with Kramnik), NAO Chess Masters Cannes 2002 (joint first with Gelfand), the Hotel Bali Stars (2003) at Benidorm 2003, and coming 2nd at the category 16 tournament in Bosnia in 2001. 2004 saw Topalov participate in Wijk an Zee Corus Chess (2004) and 21st Linares (2004) (coming =4th on both occasions), and in the FIDE World Championship Knockout Tournament (2004). He began 2005 by climbing to third place on FIDE's world ranking list. He came 3rd behind Peter Leko and Anand at Corus 2005 and tied for first (coming second on count back) with Garry Kasparov at XXII Torneo Ciudad de Linares (2005) in Kasparov’s final tournament. Two months later, he won the inaugural MTel Masters (2005) event by a full point over Viswanathan Anand; the average rating of the participants was 2744, making this super-GM, double round-robin tournament the strongest in 2005. After his =2nd at Dortmund in 2005, Topalov followed up his 2005 World Championship Tournament victory (see below) with +5 and joint first (with Anand) at Corus Wijk aan Zee (2006) and =2nd at Linares 2006 (2006). There followed his successful defence of MTel Masters (2006) (with 6.5/10, half a point ahead of Gata Kamsky who he beat 2-0), Topalov started the tournament somewhat hesitantly to later record four consecutive wins and decisively claim the title.

Topalov rebounded from his world championship reunification match loss to Kramnik in 2006 to finish equal first (with Levon Aronian and Teimour Radjabov) at the category 19 Corus (2007), but then a poor performance at Linares-Morelia (2007) caused him to lose his #1 spot in the world rankings to Anand. The next year, he regained the #1 position by convincingly winning the inaugural Bilbao Grand Slam Chess Final (2008), scoring +4 -1 =5 in the category-22 tournament. Also in 2007, he won the Mtel Masters (2007), the Liga de Campeones (2007) (a point and a half a head of Ruslan Ponomariov), and in 2008 he won Pearl Spring Chess Tournament (2008) (a point and a half ahead of Aronian). In 2009, he came 2nd with Magnus Carlsen behind Alexey Shirov in the M-Tel Masters (2009) and second behind Carlsen at the latter’s blitz at Pearl Spring Chess Tournament (2009). Soon after losing the world title bid in 2010, Topalov participated in the Essent Chess Tournament. He finished third of four players with only 2½ points from 6 games and a 2645 performance. He lost both games against Judit Polgar and one against Shakhriyar Mamedyarov. Topalov won the Linares (2010) held from February 13 to 24 in Andalusia, Spain, defeating 2009 Chess World Cup champion Boris Gelfand in his final game. He finished 2010 with 4.5/10 at Nanjing Pearl Spring Tournament (2010). Topalov continued his unremarkable form since narrowly losing his 2010 World Championship match when in early 2012, he finished 10th out of 13 at the category 21 Tata Steel (2012), scoring 5/13 (+1 -4 =8; TPR 2672), before returning to form in the 1st Grand Prix of the 2012-13 series (see above), in the 28th European Club Cup (2012), and with his =1st (2nd on tiebreak) at the Kings' Tournament (2012).

Olympiads

Topalov has been the leader of the Bulgarian national team since 1994 and has played top board for Bulgaria at every Olympiad in which he participated including Moscow 1994, Yerevan 1996, Elista 1998, Istanbul 2000, Dresden 2008, Khanty-Mansiysk 2010 and the Chess Olympiad (2012) in Istanbul. In 1994, he led the Bulgarians to a fifth-place finish, winning the gold medal for the top board, scoring 8.5/12 (TPR 2781). He won the silver medal for the top board in 1998 and 2000, scoring 8/11 on both occasions. In 2008, he won bronze with 6.5/8 and a TPR of 2821.

Other Team Play

In 1989 and 1990, Topalov played in the Bulgarian team contesting the Boys' Balkaniads competition, playing on board 2 in 1989 and board 1 in 1990, winning individual gold on both occasions, as well as a team gold in 1989 and team bronze in 1990. In 1994, he played top board for the gold medal winning Bulgarian national team in the Balkaniad team competition, and won an individual bronze. In 1999, he played 3 games for the gold medal winning European Club Championship team ŠK Bosna Sarajevo, winning two and drawing one. Topalov played top board for Bulgaria in the European Team Championships of 1999 (where he won individual gold), 2007, 2009 and 2011.

Matches

Topalov won the Topalov vs Nisipeanu Match (2006) by 3-1 (+2 =2 -0) in April 2006 and the Blind Chess World Duel (2006) against Polgar by 3.5-2.5.

Rapid

Topalov won the Dos Hermanas XIV (2008) , 17–21 April 2008, defeating Francisco Vallejo-Pons (Spain) 2½–1½ in the final match by winning the first game and drawing the rest. He also won the Villarrobledo International Rapid Open (2008) with a commanding 8/9.

Ratings and rankings

<Classical> After Kasparov's retirement, Topalov topped the FIDE World Rating List from April 2006 to January 2007, during which time his Elo rating peaked at 2813, a level that had been surpassed only by Garry Kasparov, and subsequently by Anand, Carlsen and Aronian. He regained the world #1 ranking again in October 2008, and officially remained #1 until January 2010, when he fell to #2 behind Carlsen. He has been ranked number one a total of 27 months in his career, the fifth all-time high since the inception of the FIDE ranking lists in 1971 behind only Garry Kasparov, Anatoly Karpov, Robert James Fischer and most recently Carlsen.

After his unsuccessful challenge for the world title in 2010, his form declined such that by 1 October 2012, Topalov's rating was 2751, his lowest rating since July 2004 and his ranking to number 13 in the world, his lowest ranking since January 1995. However his return to form in September and October 2012 (see above) has seen him return to the top 10, while his successful campaign in the Zug leg of the 2012-13 Grand Prix series saw him leap back to 4th in the world ratings.

As of 1 May 2013, Topalov's rating was 2793, thereby also remaining Bulgaria's top player by a significant margin and moving to number 4 in the world behind Carlsen, Aronian and Kramnik;

<Rapid> 2775: world #7;

<Blitz> 2666: world #69.

Other

Topalov won the 2005 Chess Oscar. Although he now lives in Spain, Topalov still plays for Bulgaria and has enjoyed several athletic honors from his native country, including the Sportsman of the Year award for 2005. He is renowned for his aggressive style which is exemplified in his trademark and much-feared exchange sacrifice that he has employed with great effect at all levels of play.

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