Chess Oscar was an international award given annually to the best chess player. The winner was selected by votes that were cast by chess journalists from across the world. The traditional voting procedure was to request hundreds of chess journalists from many countries to submit a list of the ten best players of the year. The voters were journalists who knew the game and followed it closely, and so the honor was highly prized. The award itself took the form of a bronze statuette representing a man in a boat. The prize was created and awarded in 1967 by Spanish journalist Jorge Puig, and the International Association of Chess Press (AIPE). The awards were given from 1967 until 1988. Then, after a pause, they resumed in 1995, and were then organized by the Russian chess magazine 64 until 2014.
The Oscar for the best woman chess player of the year was established in 1982.
Statuette
The statuette's final form, a man in a boat, was carved by the sculptor Alexander Smirnov. It represented a figure known as "The Fascinated Wanderer", which refers to a short story written in 1873 by 19th-century Russian author Nikolai Leskov. In this story, the title character, Ivan Flyagin, is a horse trainer and a brute of a man. From his birth his mother has promised that Ivan's life would be devoted to the church. Ivan spends many years avoiding this fate, but eventually gives in and becomes a monk, not for spiritual reasons, but due to a poverty of opportunity.
The Chess Oscar statuette originally took the form of "The Lady of the Umbrella", a figure based on a statue in Parc de la Ciutadella in Barcelona, Spain.
Winners
Women
Year Player Country 1982 Nona Gaprindashvili Soviet Union 1983 Pia Cramling Sweden 1984 Maya Chiburdanidze Soviet Union 1985 Maya Chiburdanidze Soviet Union 1986 Maya Chiburdanidze Soviet Union 1987 Maya Chiburdanidze Soviet Union 1988 Judit Polgár Hungary 1995 Judit Polgár Hungary 1996 Judit Polgár Hungary 2000 Judit Polgár Hungary 2001 Judit Polgár Hungary 2002 Judit Polgár Hungary
By person
Player Country Wins Garry Kasparov Soviet Union, later Russia 11 Anatoly Karpov Soviet Union 9 Viswanathan Anand India 6 Magnus Carlsen Norway 5 Bobby Fischer United States 3 Boris Spassky Soviet Union 2 Vladimir Kramnik Russia 2 Bent Larsen Denmark 1 Viktor Korchnoi Switzerland 1 Veselin Topalov Bulgaria 1
By nation
Country Wins Soviet Union 17 Russia 7 India 6 Norway 5 United States 3 Bulgaria 1 Denmark 1 Switzerland 1
Notes
- This award is not related to the more recent FIDE Caissa Award, established in 2009, occasionally referenced also as a Women Chess Oscar.
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