Portal:Bulgaria/Selected article/18

Veselin Topalov (IPA: [ve.se'lin to'pɑ.lof], Bulgarian: Веселин Топалов) (born March 15, 1975) is a Bulgarian chess player. He became the FIDE World Chess Champion by winning the FIDE World Chess Championship 2005. Topalov was awarded the 2005 Chess Oscar. In the July 2006 FIDE rating list, he is ranked number one in the world with an Elo rating of 2813, the second highest rated person ever.

Topalov was born in Rousse. He was taught to play chess when he was eight years old by his father. 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. His current trainer and manager is International Master Silvio Danailov.

On the strength of his rating, Topalov was invited to the 8 player, double round-robin FIDE World Chess Championship in San Luis, Argentina, in September-October of 2005. Scoring an extraordinary 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 a convincing 1.5 points and become FIDE World Chess Champion. The average rating of the field in the championship was 2739, and Topalov's performance rating was an incredible 2890.