The Italian Chess Federation (Italian: Federazione Scacchistica Italiana (FSI)) was established in 1920.
The first Italian Chess Championship took place at Viareggio 1921.
[1][2] The 1998 Championship was held 21–29 November in Saint-Vincent.
The ten-player field had an average Elo rating of 2390.
GM Igor Efimov won the round-robin tournament with 6.5/9, a half point ahead of GM Michele Godena and IM Bruno Belotti.