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The FIDE World Chess Championship match match between Viswanathan Anand of India and Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria had started on 24th April at the Central Military Club in Sofia, with a prize fund of 2 million euros.

The world championship is a twelve-game match with tie-breaks (same format and length as the 2006 and 2008 world championship matches).

"The time control for each game shall be: 120 minutes for the first 40 moves, 60 minutes for the next 20 moves and then 15 minutes for the rest of the game with an increment of 30 seconds per move starting after move 61 has been made."

The champion, Viswanathan Anand, who had booked on the flight Frankfurt-Sofia on April 16, was stranded due to the cancellation of all flights following the volcano ash scare from Eyjafjallajökull. Anand asked for a three day postponement, which the Bulgarian organisers refused on April 19. Anand eventually reached Sofia on April 20, after an exhausting 40-hour road journey.[4] Consequently, the first game was delayed by one day.

Topalov draws first blood

It was one of the shortest, most decisive opening games in World Championship history. Veselin Topalov rattled off his moves quickly and comfortably, with Anand following suit, until he apparently ran into his challenger's home preparation (or muddled up his own). On move 23 he blundered in a very dangerous position, and Topalov drove his advantage forcefully home.

Topalov opened with 1.d4 and Anand defended with Gruenfeld Indian, an opening he tested last year in the rapid match versus Peter Leko, and then continued to use it at the top events like 2009 Tal Memorial.

The players blitzed their way into a variation that was seen in the first game of the last year's Challenger match between Topalov and Gata Kamsky, which was also held in Sofia. In that game Topalov did not achieve advantage and later switched to different system against Gruenfeld.

But now he is back with the same line, deviating on move 16. Instead of f2-f4, as played against Kamsky, Topalov employed 16. Rac1 which was seen in an earlier top level game Karjakin-Carlsen, Foros 2008.

Anand followed the standard plan with Qd6 and f6, to slow down White's advance with e4-e5. Meanwhile, Topalov moved his Knight closer to the enemy King, and a sudden Rook lift with 23. Rf3 highlighted the fragile nature of Black's castle. With Nxf6 sacrifice looming over his head, Anand dove into his first longer thought, but immediately erred and run into a worse version of the piece sacrifice.

After penetrating both Rooks to opponent's 7th rank, a nice final touch with 29. Bb5! marked a complete domination of White pieces. Soon Anand resigned, and this triggered huge applause in the playing hall.

Game-1