And the 2009 Chess Oscar went to... Magnus Carlsen

Magnus Carlsen won the 2009 Chess Oscar. Yesterday, just before the start of the World Blitz Championship, Carlsen received the trophy. It was the first time that the Norwegian won the prize, which is a result of votes by chess journalists and awarded by Russian chess magazine 64.

The participants of the World Blitz Championships had been asked to come to the playing hall 1.5 hours before the start of the tournament. After speeches by FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, former World Champion Anatoly Karpov and Head of the Supervisory Board of the Russian Chess Federation Arkadij Dvorkovich, suddenly Magnus Carlsen was asked to come on stage. Something he didn't expect.

"I knew that I won it," Carlsen said, "but I thought they would give me the award during the closing ceremony." He received the prize from Mark Glukhovsky, the editor-in-chief of Russian chess magazine 64. The magazine has been coordinating the prize for years. It sends out questionnaires to leading journalists, who then send in their top 10.



Carlsen received the trophy, a bronze statuette, and thanked Glukhovsky. "It's an honour to receive a prize witch such a long tradition," Carlsen said.

The prize was first awarded in 1967 to another Scandinavian, the legendary Bent Larsen, who passed away this year aged 75. It was given away uninterrupted until the year 1988, and then it resumed in 1995.

The last two times the Oscar was won by current World Champion Viswanathan Anand. Garry Kasparov holds the record for winning the Oscar 11 times; Anatoly Karpov won it 9 times.