The former world chess champion for men, Veselin Topalov made one of his rare appearances on the black and white board in recent years by taking part in the first edition of the supertournament "WR Chess Masters Cup" in London, BNR reported.
However, the Bulgarian dropped out at the start, after losing 0:2 points to the Indian Vidit Santosh, who is in 22nd place in the world ranking.
In a clash of generations, 49-year-old Topalov played two good games against 20-year-old Vidit. In the first of them, he lost in 40 moves with white pieces, and in the second, in which he was with black, he had an even position, but decided to take a risk and lost after 50 moves of play.
Among the other participants in the tournament are Topalov's long-time rival Viswanathan Anand from India, Frenchmen Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Alireza Firuja, Uzbek Nodirbek Abdusatorov, as well as Swiss Alexandra Kosteniuk.
The tournament takes place between October 14 and 18, playing a direct elimination in two games with swapped color control for 60+30+30 minutes. In the event of a tie, a tiebreaker follows with a 15-minute game control. The total prize fund is 58,000 euros.