World Champion Viswanathan Anand of India defeated Bulgarian challenger Veselin Topalov 1.5-0.5 in the first round of the Amber blindfold and rapid chess tournament.
Anand got off to a flier in the final edition of this unique event winning the blindfold game with white pieces and signed peace in the rapid to get another good result against Topalov, who did not figure in any super tournaments in the past few months, The Times of India points out.
In May 2010, Bulgaria's top chess player and former World Champion Veselin Topalov Veselin Topalov was defeated by India's Viswanathan Anand , who retained his world chess title after winning by the narrowest of margins 6:5 in Bulgaria's capital Sofia. Prior to that, Topalov defeated Kamsky in his last challenge before the title match.
In February 2011, it was announced that Topalov is launching a new bid for the world title.
His bid to reclaim his title is set to begin with the Candidates Matches in May 2011.
The winner of the Candidates Matches 2011, scheduled by FIDE to be held in Kazan, Russia, from May 3rd to 27th will qualify to challenge the World Champion Vishwantath Anand in a 12-game match during the first half of 2012.
The other pairs of contenders are Boris Gelfand (Israel) – Shekhriyar Mamedyarov (Azerbajan), Vladimir Kramnik (Russia) – Teimour Radjabov (Azerbaijan), Levon Aronian (Armenia) – Alexander Grischuk (Russia)
The pairings are organized in such a way that Kramnik and Topalov could only meet in the finals in the third match, however, one wonders what will happen in the event that Topalov does qualify to meet either Kramnik or Grischuk, considering that the Bulgarian's manager previously declared that Topalov would not play against a Russian on Russian soil.
