After a series of relatively obvious moves for black (starting with 26…Nxb2) Topalov’s clever 31.Kh2 basically asked black: “what ya gonna do?” Lacking time to find and calculate a better move (31…Qb4, Re8, Qb2, Kc7…) Vallejo played the ’simple plan of just running with the a-pawn’ thereby giving away the win.

Vallejo’s last mistake 38…Bc5?? was of course heartbreaking but even if he had found the correct 38… Kc7 Topalov would have probably not have gone for the perpetual, but complicated matters again with 39.Nc3 and still flagged Vallejo.

Which leads me to this strange thought. Suppose Vallejo had played 38… Kc7 and Topalov had wanted to ‘give’ his friend the draw, how could he have accomplished that? If he had just offered it, he probably still would have flagged Vallejo. Perhaps with these weird Sofia rules he could have stopped the clock and asked the arbiter if he would be allowed to offer a draw??

Not so incomprehensible I think. With 22.Ne2 and 24.Qe3 Topalov attacked the black pawn on e5. I assume that Vallejo considered 24…0-0-0 but saw that after 25.Rxf5 Bxf5 26.Bxe5 he would lose the e5 pawn and was not sure how to evaluate the position (probably still a bit better for black).

Next I assume that Vallejo found 24… Na4 as a way to get rid of one of the attackers of e5. Vallejo may have missed that the queen could also go 25.Qh6, but perhaps he did see it and accurately assessed that black would still be a bit better after 25… Kd7, and even won again after Topalov’s 26.Rxf5?!

What Vallejo probably did not see (or he would have played it) was the best move to counter Topalov’s attack on e5: 24…Qd6! The point is that after 25.Rxf5 Bxf5 26.Bxe5? black would win with the beautiful 26…Nc4!

Of course my engine found the last variant for me. I can only admire the very brave play from both Topalov and Vallejo. But perhaps the above explains the “incomprehensible” 24…0-0-0. These are human players and especially in time trouble they make human mistakes. Topalov would surely not have played like this speculatively against an engine.

Yeah, the fun thing is that it is always Carlsen that isn’t consistent enough compared to Topalov and Kramnik. Doesn’t matter that Kramnik had a minus in Dortmund 2008 and an eve

Must confess I’m warming to Topalov’s playing – bold and with variety.

But implications for the match against Anand are limited at best, Vishy hardly ever gets into time trouble. We may also see a different Topalov at the match: less gambling, playing his main openings rather than secondary lines (h3 against the Najdorf, English opening).

On the other hand, after taking chances with sac’s Topalov has been in precarious situations, and if his opponents hadn’t painted themselves into corners, it’s not a given that he’d be notching wins.

I haven’t seen a boring position in any of his games, and that alone means he gets quite a lot of support from this corner! One day, he and Carlsen will meet across a board – but before then, Topalov has to contend with Anand, who won’t be in time trouble at move 31 …