Topalov was born in Rousse, Bulgaria. His father taught him to play chess at the age of eight. In 1989 he won the World Under-14 Championship in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, and in 1990 won the silver medal at the World Under-16 Championship in Singapore. He became a Grandmaster in 1992. Topalov has been the leader of the Bulgarian national team since 1994. At the 1994 Chess Olympiad in Moscow he beat Kasparov in 6th round and finally led the Bulgarians to a fourth-place.Topalov participated all 5 knock-out FIDE championships. He reached the quarter-finals in 2000 and the semi-finals in the 2004 tournament.Topalov scored his first "super-tournament" success at Linares 2005, tying for the first place with Garry Kasparov (though losing on tiebreak rules), and defeating Kasparov in the last round, in what was to be Kasparov's last tournament game before his retirement. He followed this up with a one point victory at the M-Tel Masters 2005 tournament, ahead of Viswanathan Anand, Vladimir Kramnik, Ruslan Ponomariov, Michael Adams, and Judit Polgar. In Argentina in October 2005, Topalov put on a dominating performance to win the FIDE World Chess Championship (2005), finishing a point and a half ahead of his nearest rivals. In 2006, Topalov tied first with Anand in Corus Chess Tournament and got the 2nd place in Linares Super tournament. In Sofia, Topalov defended his M-Tel Masters title. In september in 2006, Topalov lost his title to Vladimir Kramnik in a unification match played in Elista, under the auspices of FIDE.In 2007, Topalov finished equal first at Corus (2007) and won his third  M-Tel Masters title in May. In 2008, Topalov regained the No.1 position by convincingly winning the inaugural Bilbao Grand Slam Chess Final (2008), scoring +4 -1 =5 in the category-22 tournament.