Bulgaria's top chess player and former World Champion Veselin Topalov will play Gata Kamsky from USA as his bid to reclaim his title is set to begin with the Candidates Matches in May 2011.

The winner of the Candidates Matches 2011, scheduled by FIDE to be held in Kazan, Russia, from May 3rd to 27th will qualify to challenge the World Champion Vishwantath Anand in a 12-game match during the first half of 2012.

The other pairs of contenders are Boris Gelfand (Israel) – Shekhriyar Mamedyarov (Azerbajan), Vladimir Kramnik (Russia) – Teimour Radjabov (Azerbaijan), Levon Aronian (Armenia) – Alexander Grischuk (Russia)

The pairings are organized in such a way that Kramnik and Topalov could only meet in the finals in the third match, however, one wonders what will happen in the event that Topalov does qualify to meet either Kramnik or Grischuk, considering that the Bulgarian's manager previously declared that Topalov would not play against a Russian on Russian soil.

In May 2010, the 35 year old Veselin Topalov was defeated by India's Viswanathan Anand , who retained his world chess title after winning by the narrowest of margins 6:5 in Bulgaria's capital Sofia. Prior to that, Topalov defeated Kamsky in his last challenge before the title match.