This prestigious international prize is awarded by the Russian chess magazine 64-Chess Review to the best chess player of the year on the basis of his `real merit and strength' and not titles.

The Oscar is awarded on the basis of hundreds of individual `subjective' ratings of the top chess specialists, a sum of which gives the real, objective rating of a chess player, something a single tournament is unable to provide, Moscow daily Izvestia noted.

Anand topped the list of best chess players of 1998 by bagging 3278 points, followed by 21 year-old Russian Alexander Morzevich (2146) on the basis of a poll among several hundred Grandmasters and sports journalists from 57 countries.