[7] His first coach was Marin Atanasov from Victory Club in Blagoevgrad and his chess idols are Veselin Topalov and Tigran Petrosyan.
[9] His major breakthrough came at the strong 2012 Zadar Open chess tournament in Croatia held between 16 and 22 December, during which he finished in fourth place after defeating a number of higher-ranked players and also increased his Elo rating by 70 points.
[8][11] On 14 April 2013, Ivanov defeated grandmaster Kiril Georgiev in a tournament held in Kyustendil, eventually winning the competition after finishing joint first with Grigor Grigorov, scoring 7½/9 points (securing the victory due to tiebreaker criteria).
1 in Bulgaria, stated in an interview on 21 May 2013 that there is no evidence that Ivanov is cheating, and that "it's simply stupid to blame a chess player for performing well on the board".
He also expressed a willingness to undergo all the necessary tests, but under the condition that he is notified of the next such possibility at least 15 days in advance and is accompanied by his lawyer Mihail Ekimdzhiev.
[24] However, in Ivanov's view, the Bulgarian Chess Federation has refused to offer him any further opportunities to subject himself to rigorous testing of that nature.
[25] Ivanov's retirement came shortly after a controversial performance in a tournament in Blagoevgrad, in which Ivanov, among other things, voluntarily forfeited his games after refusing to be searched for suspected cheating devices, was observed walking in a "gangsta" fashion with a limp, and referred to one of his opponents, Grandmaster Maxim Dlugy, as a "clown".
[8] On 26 and 27 October 2013, Ivanov participated in the rapid chess Nayden Voynov Memorial Tournament in Vidin, scoring 6½/9 points and finishing 7th out of 61 players.
[39] In March 2017, Ivanov was arrested in Kyustendil due to allegedly masterminding a group engaged in forging driver's licenses and selling them on the Internet.
[needs update] The authorities were alerted to the scam by presenters from the comedy TV show Gospodari Na Efira.