Bulgarian President Georgi Purvanov will open the third annual M-Tel Masters chess tournament on May 9.

The official opening will be at 6pm in Grand Hotel Sofia.

A lottery will define the programme of the tournament, Focus news agency reported.

Joaquin Espejo from Spain will be the chief referee at the competition. Boris Postovsky from US and Panagiotis Nikolopoulos from Greece will be deputy chief referees.

Bulgarian chess player Vesselin Topalov played chess against Alex Brunetti while blindfolded in a demonstration match before the start of the competition. Brunetti won a competition named Play Like Topalov, held during the 2006 M-Tel Masters.