This year's Corus chess tournament will sadly not be remembered for the right reasons in the wake of accusations of cheating by top rated Bulgarian and eventual joint-winner Veselin Topalov.
The heroics of Armenian Levon Aronian, who emerged joint-winner along with Topalov and Teimour Radjabov of Azerbaijan, or for that matter, the mediocre show by five-time winner Viswanathan Anand were all overshadowed by the scandal.
International Master Martin Breutigam, a longtime contributor to German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung, accused Topalov of soliciting help from his manager Silvio Danailov through gestures and signals during some of the games.
"The behaviour of Topalov and Danailov provided grounds for new speculation. Anyone who watched the two during rounds two and three could get the impression that a process of non-verbal communication was taking place between the two only noticed by those who watched carefully," reported chessbase.com, a popular chess portal that translated the German text written by Breutigam.
In the second round when Topalov was playing six-time Dutch champion Loek Van Wely, "a strange ritual kept repeating itself. As soon as van Wely made a move Danailov rushed out of the hall and pulled his mobile phone out of his jacket," he said.
But van Wely did not think anything "fishy" was going on.
"During the game I did not at all have the impression that anything was fishy, but I was also told that Danailov was behaving in a very suspicious fashion," van Wely was quoted as saying by the paper.
Apart from this game, the accusation also extended to the next round when Topalov drew with Sergey Karjakin of Ukraine from a difficult situation.
However, during the World Championships in Elista last year, Topalov had accused Russia's Vladimir Kramnik of cheating by taking frequent toilet breaks.
Speculation and accusations apart, Topalov was in his element barring the momentary lapse of concentration against Russian Peter Svidler, who was the lone conqueror of the Bulgarian in the category-19 event.
Topalov enjoyed the edge at one time but his brief distraction allowed Svidler to come back into the game.
The Bulgarian said he "was happy with his performance".
"It is fantastic to share the first place in such a prestigious tournament. We witnessed a clash of generations. There is a new one coming -- Radjabov
and Aronian, but they met the resistance from my generation -- Kramnik and Anand," Topalov said.
One of his supporters backed Topalov amid the accusations.
"Veselin Topalov is a man that works for chess, its development, and promotion. If you people, that write articles with no facts or credible arguments, do not care about the future development of chess and the ones that work for its promotion, you should at least not hinder that process," he wrote in his website.
As for Anand, the fifth-placed finish must have come as a disappointment but he must be already looking to return next year in search of his sixth title.
The Indian ace lost two games in the event that proved crucial in the end. Also, towards the fag end of the tournament, his form was not at the best as he could only draw the last three games.
Another Indian in fray but playing in Group 'C', Grandmaster Parimarjan Negi showed promise in finishing fourth.
The final round victory against Hou Yifan of China was the most cherished for the teenager.
"I have a few strong tournaments coming up, my preparation here should certainly help me in those," said the 13-year-old Negi.
