Chess is safe, and not even close to being solved. Considering a study from a year or two ago showed that humans now have the shortest attention spans on the planet, i would say chess is safe.
Attention Span Statistics | Data |
The average attention span in 2015 | 8.25 seconds |
The average attention span in 2000 | 12 seconds |
The average attention span of a gold fish | 9 seconds |
Given his poor performance in the candidates tourney I guess Topalov is a bit fed up. He is a super creative player but will probably be remembered as the guy who fell foul of Kasparov's 'immortal game' in 1999, or the controversy vs Kramnik rather than his own best games.
Must be quite frustrating to be a super GM but not quite become world champ. Judging from afar it seems like GM's who have passed their peak either start playing drawishly or start experimenting with dubious lines and suffer some bad losses. I guess Topalov as a creative player is frustrated that at super GM level there isn't much success to be had by going off the beaten track and it can get a bit stale playing out the same opening 20 moves as you have done hundreds of times before because you know there are no improvements to be made.
And chess will never be solved even if computers are able to prove a forced win as white from the opening. In an over the board context it would be impossible to remember the winning line of 80 moves or whatever vs every conceivable black reply at each move.