Dannemann Masters in Brissago (1 - 6 February 2003):
Vice World Champion Kosteniuk vs Whiz-kid Karjakin
 

During the first week of February next year Switzerland is set to be the focal point of a chess highlight. From 1 to 6 February 2003 the Centro Dannemann in Brissago, Canton Ticino, is scheduled as the venue for an encounter between 18-year old Russian Women's Vice World Champion Alexandra Kosteniuk and Ukraine's whiz-kid, 12-year old Sergey Karjakin, the younger Grandmaster of all time, as part of the Dannemann Masters. The six-day match on the shores of Lago Maggiore is being sponsored and organised by the Swiss-based company Dannemann.
 
A year ago Alexandra Kosteniuk lost the Women's World Championships final in Moscow to China's Chen Zhu by 3 games to 5, after eight dramatic (tie-break) games; the Dannemann Masters is her third competition in Switzerland. Women's Grandmaster Kosteniuk, who was born on 23 April 1984 and has also worked as a model, currently has a FIDE rating of 2459 ELO. This summer the Russian played the Masters Tournament in Biel and the Swiss blitz championships at the Expo Games at Yverdon-les-Bains. By contrast, Sergey Karjakin, who was born on 12 January 1990, has only recently rocketed onto the chess scene as a newly crowned Grandmaster (2489 ELO), and is to make his first appearance in Switzerland.
 
The matches in Brissago will be played according to the classic rules, i.e. 40 moves in two hours plus one hour for the remainder of the game. Play is scheduled to start at 12 noon on Saturday/Sunday, and at 2 p.m. on the following four days. The match will be supervised by Switzerland's Photios Lucio Barvas, an international FIDE arbiter. Barvas, who is also head of ChessBase Switzerland, will ensure that all six games are shown live on the Internet on ChessBase's home page (www.chessbase.de). For spectators on site the games will be commentated by Swiss IM Werner Hug, the 1971 Juniors World Champion.