A good position straight out of the opening for Gavrilescu, as his bishop makes it impossible for Topalov to bring his king to safety by castling.
Nice move by Topalov, who is now ready to push his pawn up the board. Right now the threat is to win a piece, but importantly once Gavrilescu deals with that Topalov will be able to castle short.
Topalov reaches a comfortable position, where he's the one calling the shots due to the greater space control on the left hand side.
Good moment for Topalov to jump in with his knight. He'll be able to pick up Gavrilescu's strong bishop as a result.
Gavrilescu is doing a great job of hanging in there. His strong central knight more or less offsets the two bishop advantage of Topalov.
Gavrilescu takes some time to soften up Topalov's king defenses.
Topalov finally pushes back Gavrilescu's strong knight, though it does weaken the position around his king.
You have to slightly fear for Topalov's king here, as it's starting to get chased around.
Down to seconds, Gavrilescu makes a big blunder. But the way to punish it is far from obvious (a pawn push!) so it's unlikely that Topalov will find it.
Indeed, Topalov does not go for the pawn push that would have upset Gavrilescu's defenses.
Uh-oh, that knight is getting caught like a fish!
Excellent play by the Bulgarian grandmaster. He's managed to trick Gavrilescu and caught his knight! Seeing this and down to just seconds on his clock, Gavrilescu throws in the towel. Topalov moves to 5 points out of 17, with just one round to go!
Topalov and Gavrilescu have both struggled in the blitz section, and after 16 rounds they are each on four points. It would be a real confidence boost for either player to lock down some wins here as the tournament draws to a close. There's just two games to go now, and for sure both players will be looking to avoid finishing in last place. Let's see who fortune favors in this match-up!