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Gata Kamsky held favorite Veselin Topalov in the first game of the Challenger's match being held in Bulgaria. In an exciting, Grunfeld game, Kamsky forced the aggressive Topalov to go for a draw after 36 moves. The result must be considered to be good for Kamsky's morale since he now has the white pieces tomorrow. Kamsky cooly countered the novelty that Topalov dished out on the 17th move, held on to an extra pawn and made Topalov fight for the initiative. After the novelty, both players played accurate chess to reach an even endgame where a draw was an expected result.

The match to decide who will face Vishy Anand will be played between Topalov and Kamsky at Sofia, Bulgaria. It will be held between February 16-28 and will be an 8 game affair. The winner has a great chance to become the next World Champion, provided Vishy loses. While Kamsky won the right to the Challenger match by winning the World Cup, Topalov got the opportunity since he was denied a Toiletgate rematch against Kramnik. Although Kamsky tried hard to get the match to the US and later to the Ukraine, he finally had to agree to play in Bulgaria, since he could not get the funds to stage the match at Ukraine. Danailov managed to get the match to his favorite location. We feel that Topalov is the firm favorite, but Kamsky is a cool customer and is especially tough even when under intense pressure. Lets hope he pulls out some old tricks to try and outclass Topalov