And the 2010 Chess Oscar goes... to Magnus Carlsen

Magnus Carlsen won the 2010 Chess Oscar. The prize is a result of votes by international chess journalists and awarded by Russian chess magazine 64. Last year Carlsen won his first Oscar.Magnus Carlsen with his first Oscar in Moscow, November last year Sixteen 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 2010 Chess Oscar was 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 went to Magnus Carlsen, who scored 1264 points. The gap between Carlsen and the runner-up – the World champion Vishy Anand – was mere 20 points! Only for the second time in history of the trophy, it was not given to the World Champion who successfully defended his title – in 1978 Viktor Korchnoi lost the World Championship match to Anatoly Karpov, but nevertheless received the Oscar. Update: as mishanp mentions in the comments, Vladimir Kramnik came 4th (!) in the 2004 Oscar voting. The young Norwegian grandmaster was the world's highest rated player by the end of 2010 (2814 Elo), and won four super-tournaments – 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 first in the Amber tournament and took the bronze medal in the World Blitz Championship in Moscow. Magnus Carlsen was mentioned as the best player of the year in 53 submitted lists. The rest of the top ten looks as follows: 3. Levon Aronian (4 first places, 767 points) 4. Vladimir Kramnik (570 points) 5. Sergey Karjakin (535 points) 6. Veselin Topalov (437 points) 7. Ian Nepomniachtchi (2 first places, 435 points) 8. Vassily Ivanchuk (1 first place, 428 points) 9. Hikaru Nakamura (215 points) 10. Alexander Grischuk (169 points) The prize was first awarded in 1967 to another Scandinavian, the legendary Bent Larsen, who passed away last year aged 75. It was given away uninterrupted until the year 1988, and then it resumed in 1995.

Carlsen holding the 2009 trophy

Thanks to Misha Savinov