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Veselin Aleksandrov Topalov is a Bulgarian chess grandmaster.
Topalov 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. He won the 2005 Chess Oscar.
According to FIDE, which began ranking chess players in 1971, he has been number one a total of 27 months, which when compared to all others who have been so ranked, places Topalov in fifth place after Kasparov, Karpov, Fischer and Carlsen. He was ranked number one in the world from April 2006 to January 2007, during which his peak Elo rating was 2813, a peak which had been surpassed only by Garry Kasparov, and subsequently by Magnus Carlsen, Viswanathan Anand and Levon Aronian. He regained the world No. 1 ranking again in October 2008, and officially remained No. 1 until January 2010, when he fell to No. 2 behind Carlsen. In December 2012 he was ranked number 8.
In the World Chess Championship 2010, he was the challenger facing world champion Viswanathan Anand, losing the match 6½–5½.
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