Chess match made in heaven won’t come off in Beijing

SANDS: Chess match made in heaven won’t come off in Beijing
By David R. Sands
The Washington Times
Tuesday, March 20, 2012

For one brief, shining moment last week, the impending world championship fight between Indian titleholder Viswanathan Anand and Israeli challenger Boris Gelfand was shaping up to be the second most interesting match of the year.

Anand-Gelfand, which starts May 10 in Moscow, promises to be an absorbing fight for hard-core chess junkies, but it’s also a pairing with practically zero sporting interest for the broader viewing public, at least for those outside of the contestants’ respective hometowns.

By contrast, the official-sounding announcement that Hungary’s Judit Polgar — the greatest female player in the history of the game — had agreed to take on China’s Hou Yifan — the 17-year-old reigning women’s world champion and a rising superstar — in an eight-game, mixed classical and rapid match in Beijing starting Sept. 26 had an electrifying effect.

Polgar was for a decade one of the top 10 players in the world – man or woman – and even now ranks in the top 30. Hou, who defended her title last year against Indian Humpy Koneru and started 2012 with fantastic results at open events in Gibraltar and Reykjavik, has shot up the ratings charts (she was just outside the top 100 in FIDE’s March list) and is ready to emerge as the first female player able to give Polgar a tough fight. The fact that Hou defeated Polgar in their game at Gibraltar only added to the anticipation.

Alas, reports of the match, which first appeared on Chinese chess blogs, appear to have outpaced reality. Polgar put out a statement last week that the Beijing match was news to her and denied even discussing a contract to play.

“If there is a real determination for such a historic clash, then I wait to hear about it in an appropriate way. Until then, I just enjoy time with my family!” she wrote.

Still, in the interest of ginning up pressure to make the match a reality, we present here a sample of what might have been and still may be, with games from both players early in their careers that gave a promise of greatness.

Like Hou, the 35-year-old Polgar was a prodigy back in the day, rising with and eventually outstripping her elder sisters, Sofia and Susan. One of the first games to demonstrate her magnificent tactical abilities came at a tournament in Iceland when she was just 11, facing established English GM Jonathan Tisdall.

More here.