M-Tel Masters

Mtel Masters was an annual super-GM chess tournament held between 2005 and 2009 in Sofia, Bulgaria, sponsored and organized by the Bulgarian mobile network operator, M-Tel.

The first edition of the tournament took place between 11 and 22 May 2005 as part of M-Tel's tenth anniversary celebrations and with the participation of top chess players such as Viswanathan Anand, Veselin Topalov, Vladimir Kramnik, Michael Adams, Judit Polgár and Ruslan Ponomariov.

Brazilian writer Paulo Coelho played the token initial move of the 2006 tournament, which was officially opened by the President of Bulgaria, Georgi Parvanov.

M-Tel Masters' 2007 edition was held between 9 May and 20 May and featured Veselin Topalov, Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Gata Kamsky, Michael Adams and Krishnan Sasikiran.

Besides regular feature Veselin Topalov, the participating grandmasters were Magnus Carlsen, Vasyl Ivanchuk, Alexei Shirov, Wang Yue and Leinier Domínguez.