GM Veselin Topalov – World Chess Champion 2005 – 2006
Veselin Topalov is a Bulgarian grandmaster. He became the FIDE World Chess Champion by winning the FIDE World Chess Championship 2005. He lost his title in the World Chess Championship 2006 match against Vladimir Kramnik. Topalov won the 2005 Chess Oscar.
Veselin Topalov was born in the year 1975 on the 15th of March in Rousse, Bulgaria. It was his father who taught him to play chess. At the age of 8, he was introduced to chess. His first important win was at the World Under-14 Championship in the year 1989, which was held in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico. His performance was exceptionally brilliant in the World Under-16 Championship 1990, held in Singapore where he won a silver medal. Topalov was awarded the title of Grandmaster in the year 1992. His reign as the leader of Bulgarian National Team from the year 1994 had been immensely impressive. He won the World Chess Championship in the year 2005.
Veselin Topalov came into the limelight with his performance at the Chess Olympiad 1994, held in Moscow. After this, Topalov won numerous tournaments all over the world. His FIDE ranking started going up as a result.
Topalov was the eye catcher at Linares 2005 as he fought for the super-tournament success. He tied it with Garry Kasparov for the first position.
He has some fabulous victories in his bag against renowned players like Vladimir Kramnik, Viswanathan Anand, Michael Adams, Judit Polgar and Ruslan Ponomariov.
Atanas Kolev 