Veselin Topalov wins Linares 2010

Topalov qualifies for Grand Slam Final Masters

Topalov concentrating
before the start of R5 in Linares

Veselin Topalov won the 2010 edition of the Linares chess tournament. He collected 6,5/9, half a point more than Grischuk (winner of 2009) and a point more than Aronian. With this victory, Topalov becomes the second player to guarantee his spot at the Grand Slam Final after Magnus Carlsen.

Entering the second half of the double round robin tournament with a large margin of point and a half ahead of the opposition, Topalov's victory appeared imminent, but he almost threw it away in the penultimate game after losing against the last-year winner Alexander Grischuk, who then caught up on the shared first place.

But Topalov quickly bounced up and beat the 2009 World Cup winner Boris Gelfand in the last round in an impressive Rook endgame. Meanwhile, Grischuk could not achieve more than a draw with black pieces against Francisco Vallejo Pons and remained half a point behind the Bulgarian. Levon Aronian secured the third place by winning against Vugar Gashimov.

This is Topalov's first sole victory of Linares, which comes after an year off which he took to play the Challengers match against Kamsky. In 2005 he shared first with Garry Kasparov after defeating him in the last round, a game after which Kasparov announced he is retiring.

Linares 2010 was the last tournament of Veselin Topalov before his WCC match against Viswanathan Anand.

Linares chess games of Topalov

Vallejo - Topalov 1/2-1/2
Topalov - Gashimov 1:0
Aronian - Topalov 1/2-1/2
Topalov - Grischuk 1:0
Topalov - Vallejo 1:0
Gashimov - Topalov 1/2-1/2
Topalov - Aronian 1/2-1/2
Grischuk - Topalov 1:0
Topalov Gelfand 1:0

More information about Linares 2010 on FIDE.com final report