Carlsen beats Anand to 2010 Chess Oscar

In an incredibly close-run fight Magnus Carlsen has been voted the chess journalists’ player of 2010. He won his second Oscar in a row after scoring 1264 points to finish a mere 20 points ahead of Viswanathan Anand. It was only the second time in history that the World Champion didn’t win the prize in the year he defended (or won) the title. The first occasion was back in 1978, when Viktor Korchnoi won the Oscar despite losing to Anatoly Karpov.

Correction: the "factoid" about Korchnoi was mentioned in the Russian press release, but as pointed out in the comments below, Vladimir Kramnik also didn't receive the Oscar after defending his title against Leko in 2004 (he actually came 4th, below Anand, Kasparov and... Leko).

The results were announced by Mark Glukhovsky, the editor of the chess magazine “64”, which resurrected the prize back in 1995. Since then Garry Kasparov has won 5 times (1995, 1996, 1999, 2001, 2002), Vishy Anand 6 times (1997, 1998, 2003, 2004, 2007, 2008), Vladimir Kramnik twice (2000, 2006), Veselin Topalov once (2005), and now Magnus Carlsen two years running (2009, 2010).

As detailed at the Russian Chess Federation website, for the 2010 Oscar there were 111 ranking lists submitted by invited journalists from 36 countries. The scoring system is 1st place – 13 points, 2nd – 11, 3rd – 9, 4th – 7, 5th – 6 and so on until 10th – 1.

The full results were:

1. Magnus Carlsen (1264 points, 53 first places)
2. Vishy Anand (1244 points, 51 first places)
3. Levon Aronian (767 points, 4 first places)
4. Vladimir Kramnik (570 points)
5. Sergey Karjakin (535 points)
6. Veselin Topalov (437 points)
7. Ian Nepomniachtchi (435 points, 2 first places)
8. Vassily Ivanchuk (428 points, 1 first place)
9. Hikaru Nakamura (215 points)
10. Alexander Grischuk (169 points)

Although Magnus Carlsen didn’t have 2010 all his own way (he struggled at the Olympiad and the Bilbao Masters), he still won four supertournaments in Wijk aan Zee, Bazna, Nanjing and London, as well as the Amber Tournament in Monaco. He was rated 2814 (four points ahead of Vishy Anand) on the January 2011 rating list.  

Photo: Carlsen receiving his Oscar for 2009 before the World Blitz Championship in Moscow, RCF website

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