13th May, 2003

DESPITE having a lacklustre performance in the past year by his own very
high standards, world number one Garry Kasparov has somewhat
surprisingly been awarded his twelfth Chess Oscar, the annual chess
"Beauty Contest" that invites chess journalists, Grandmasters, and
officials to submit their personal top 10 choices for player of the
year.

Kasparov, who recently turned 40, polled 3802 points in the 2002 Chess
Oscar and finished well ahead of Peter Leko (2668 points); the rest of
the top-ten being: Vishy Anand (2453), Ruslan Ponomariov (2145),
Vladimir Kramnik (1471), Evgeny Bareev (1132), Veselin Topalov (964),
Judit Polgar (771), Anatoly Karpov (741), Alexander Grischuk (706).

The vote, organized by the Russian magazine "64", came as a surprise
following a catalogue of disasters for Kasparov that included a shock
loss to arch-rival Anatoly Karpov in New York; his only bright spot
being the Bled Olympiad, where he turned in the highest individual
performance rating to lead Russia to gold.

The chess year has been a good one for Hungary, thanks to the stunning
performances of former prodigies Peter Leko and Judit Polgar, and my own
voting preference reflected this with the choice of 1 Leko, 2 J Polgar,
3 Anand, 4 Kasparov, 5 Kramnik, 6 Bareev, 7 Ponomariov, 8 Karpov, 9
Adams, 10 Topalov.

For Leko, who came back from the "dead" last year, 2002 was outstanding
and started by winning the Dubai Grand Prix. This was followed up by
becoming Kramnik's official world title challenger after winning the
Dortmund Candidates tournament. Polgar, who came eighth on the list,
had her best season ever. The world's top female player (playing second
behind Leko) was in stunning form as Hungary took silver in the Bled
Olympiad just behind Russia; became the first female player to beat
Kasparov in a competitive game; and best of all, came second behind
Anand at Wijk aan Zee - all of which culminated in her finally breaking
the 2700 barrier on the Elo list.

Originally the award was the brainchild of Spanish journalist Jorge Puig
- with the cooperation of the International Association of Chess Press
(the AIPE abbreviation is derived from the French name of the
organisation: Association Internationale de la press echiqueene) - who
initiated the annual award in 1967, the first recipient being Denmark's
Bent Larsen. In 1989, following the demise of the AIPE, the Oscar became
defunct. However, following a seven-year hiatus, Alexander Roshal, the
influential editor of the top Russian magazine "64", revived the annual
award.

Roll of Honour: Bent Larsen 1967; Boris Spassky 1968-69; Bobby Fischer
1970-72; Anatoly Karpov 1973-1977 and 1979-1981; Viktor Korchnoi 1978;
Garry Kasparov 1982-1988, 1995-1996, 1999 and 2001-2002; Vishy Anand
1997-1998; Vladimir Kramnik 2000.

P Heine-Nielsen - L McShane
11th Sigeman & Co., (1)
Gruenfeld Defence
1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 g6 3 Nc3 d5 4 cxd5 Nxd5 5 e4 Nxc3 6 bxc3 Bg7 7 Bc4 c5 8
Ne2 cxd4 9 cxd4 Nc6 10 Be3 0-0 11 0-0 Bg4 12 f3 Na5 13 Bd3 Be6 14 d5
Bxa1 15 Qxa1 f6 16 Bh6 Re8 17 Kh1 Bd7 18 e5 Rc8 19 Ng3 Nc4 20 Bxc4 Rxc4
21 Ne4 Qb6 22 Rd1 Rxe4 23 fxe4 fxe5 24 Qxe5 Qf6 25 Qg3 e6 26 d6 e5 27 h3
b5 28 Bg5 Qe6 29 Be7 Rc8 30 Rf1 Qc4 31 Qf2 b4 32 Bg5 Bb5 33 d7 Bxd7 34
Bh6 Bf5 35 exf5 Qf7 36 f6 a5 37 Qb6 Ra8 1-0

JOHN B HENDERSON