Toiletgate Worth Chess Crown

5 January 2007, Friday
By Ivelina Puhaleva

The last two years have probably been the strangest, yet most rewarding in the career of Chess Grandmaster Vesselin Topalov. Despite his defeat by Vladimir Kramnik, Bulgaria’s Vesseling Topalov is still the chess master of the world, the latest FIDE rankings show. The chess federation published its ratings for January of 2007, and Topalov still holds the highest number of points (2783), although his loss cost him 30 points.

In 2005 he started by a third place in Courus and a disappointing performance in Dortmund. And he finished by taking the World Champion title in San Luis, Argentina by the amazing 1,5 points advantage. Adding to this the joint first place in Linares 2005 (where he defeated Kasparov in his last oficial game) and a victory in Mtel Masters 2006 he soon became top of the list with over 2800 rating.

The weirdest part in the latest events, however, came from Elista, Russia, where the world watched a one-month tense game – the unification match between Russia’s Vladimir Kramnik and Bulgaria’s Veselin Topalov. Surprisingly, it was not the chess skills that focused the limelight but … the toilets.

…No Remorse

Upon their return to homeland Veselin Topalov and his manager Silvio Danailov announced that there would be a book exposing Toiletgate. “We were under a lot of pressure, the hosts made everything to win the title,” Silvio Danailov said in Sofia. “Expect a whole book on the events in Elista where the scandal with the toilet will be explained in details.” Yes, any follow-up of this highly controversial story is worth – not for the sake of rivaling champions, but for the world of chess lovers

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