Veselin Topalov has proven himself as the true heir to the title of "World's Best Chess Player" held by Garry Kasparov for over a decade by decisively winning the 2005 World Championship Tournament in San Luis, Argentina. In a fourteen round double-round robin tournament he placed clear first with 10 points (6 wins and 8 draws, no losses); an incredible "+6" (6 more wins than losses) result. At the super-grandmaster level tournaments are often won with +2 or +3 scores. World rated #2 Viswanathan Anand tied for 2nd place with Peter Svidler with 8.5/14 at "+3." This is a disappointing result for Anand who has been the second best player in the world for atleast a decade and looks like may have been vaulted by Topalov. Svidler only had one loss (to Topalov) and four wins, a very encouraging result for someone who doesn't turn 30 until next year. Anand played brilliantly and dangerously losing two games with the Black pieces to players he shouldn't have (Morozevich and Kasimjanov) but winning 5 games, drawing both his matches with both Topalov and Svidler. A decisive result in 50% of his games shows that he was definitely intereted in playing fighting chess in Argentina. About twenty years ago, Anand and Michael Adams and I used to play in the same tournaments, so I still maintain an interest in what is going on in the upper echelons of competitive chess. I had previously predicted that Topalov would win the tournament and Anand would place second but I thought the strongest female player of all time would have a breakthrough tournament and place third. Instead, Judit Polgar had an absoluteoly wretched tournament and placed last (which is where I though Svidler would end up).
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