Chess Oscar 2010 Press Release
by Misha Savinov
30th July 2011
16 years ago Alexander Roshal and 64-Chess Review magazine revived the Chess Oscar - a special award for the best chess player of the year. Garry Kasparov won it in 1995, 1996, 1999, 2001, and 2002, Vishy Anand was the winner in 1997, 1998, 2003, 2004, 2007, and 2008, Vladimir Kramnik won in 2000, and 2006, Veselin Topalov took the Oscar in 2005, and Magnus Carlsen won in 2009.
The Chess Oscar 2010 iis awarded based on 111 lists from chess journalists of 36 countries (1st place in the list gives 13 points, 2nd place - 11 points, 3rd place - 9 points, 4th place - 7 points, 5th place - 6 points... 10th place - 1 point).
For the second year in a row the Oscar goes to Magnus Carlsen, who scored 1264 points. The gap between Carlsen and the runner-up - the World champion Vishy Anand - is mere 20 points! Only for the second time in history of the trophy it is not given to the World champion who successfully defended his title - in 1978 Viktor Korchnoi lost the championship match to Anatoly Karpov, but nevertheless received the Oscar.
The young Norwegian grandmaster was the world's highest rated player by the end of 2010 (2814 Elo), and won four supertournaments - Wijk aan Zee, Bazna, Nanjing and London. Even rather mediocre results at the Chess Olympiad and in the Grand Slam final did not overshadow these achievements. In addition, Carlsen was highly successful in speed chess - he tied for the first in the Amber tournament and took the bronze in the World blitz championship in Moscow. Magnus Carlsen was mentioned as the best player of the year in 53 submitted lists.
| Rank | Name | 1sts | Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Magnus Carlsen | 53 | 1264 |
| 2 | Viswanathan Anand | 51 | 1244 |
| 3 | Levon Aronian | 4 | 767 |
| 4 | Vladimir Kramnik | 570 | |
| 5 | Sergey Karjakin | 535 |
