Veselin Topalov held his nerve for a last round win over Boris Gelfand to secure his first outright Linares title in Spain on Wednesday - but it wasn’t enough to replace Magnus Carlsen from the world No.1 spot.

With joint leader Alexander Grischuk coming under pressure against Spanish hope Francisco Vallejo, the Russian champion had to bail out with a draw that opened the way for Topalov to take the title and 75,000 Euro first prize with his +3 score of 6.5/10.

While the result may well prove a huge boost for Topalov’s upcoming world title challenge against Vishy Anand in April, it has to be hard for him as he came tantalizingly close to a double whammy of winning Linares AND becoming world No.1.

But Topalov’s fate was sealed following his penultimate round loss to Grischuk.  Despite beating Gelfand (or, as the case maybe, Gelfand somehow contriving to beat himself) in the final round, he fell short of taking the top spot in the world rankings by just one rating point. 

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