Bulgaria's world chess king Veselin Topalov admitted in an interview Tuesday that he had a secret weapon during the tournament that crowned him - a lucky necktie.
Topalov received the tie as a present from his first ever chess trainer Dimitar Sinabov, before departing for the tournament, with the promise that it would bring him luck.
The new chess king shared with private btv channel that he wore the necktie at the opening of the tournament and it might have brought him an extra whiff of luck.
The channel surprised Topalov with a phone call by Sinabov, who shared that when the king started training at the age of seven he was a "modest, good, quiet and very ambitious kid." The trainer said that in no time he had had to use a personalized technique for Topalov, because he was way ahead of the other students his age.
Topalov shared his regret that his short stay in Bulgaria might mean that he wouldn't have time to visit his birth town of Ruse at the coast of the Danube, but he said that he was a bit worried by the fact that the town was in the whirlpool of the last days of the electoral campaign. He didn't want candidates to try and use his successes as a lever for their own campaign, Topalov said, as he was not interested in politics and did not want to deceive the people.
Today the world chess king is meeting Bulgaria's president and prime minister.
Topalov, who became the new World chess champion with a round to spare, ended his participation in the championship at San Luis unbeaten.
A day earlier he emerged the New World Chess Champion, 2005, with his unsurpassable score of 9.5 points out of 13 games. The title brought USD 300,000 with it.
This is Topalov's biggest achievement after beating legendary Gary Kasparov at Linares earlier this year and a group of top 6 chess players including Viswanathan Anand to lift the M-Tel Trophy in Sofia.