Judit Polgar v Hou Yifan Match Denied

Chinese women's world chess champion Hou Yifan is still only 18 years old, but her recent stellar form in Gibraltar and Reykjavik has forced the issue of a match with long-time women's #1 ranked player Judit Polgar onto the agenda.

A Chinese chess news blog has reported that an 8-game match (of 4 classical games and 4 rapid games) between the two best women players has been arranged to take place in China between 26 September and 2 October 2012.

Hou Yifan and Judit Polgar before their historic clash in Gibraltar this year

This apparently definite announcement met with a bemused response from Polgar on twitter, who denied any knowledge of the plans:

"Yifan vs.Polgar officially announced? Well, find it strange that I don’t know about it, never signed anything.So, completely FALSE!"

Polgar expanded on her comment via an official statement at her sister Susan's chess blog:

"Well, I find it very strange and unfortunate that based on the writing of a Chinese insider chess blog some mainstream chess websites present false information about me putting it up as a fact. They not only say that a match between me and the woman world champion has been officially announced, but also go into details, as of date and organization plans (4 classical and 4 rapid games).

I firmly have to say that the information is FALSE! I neither know anything about this match, nor agreed to sign any kind of contract whatsoever! If there is a real determination for such a historic clash, than I wait to hear about it in an appropriate way. Until then I just enjoy time with my family! :)"

So the original announcement seems to be very much mistaken - but the commercial attractiveness of such a match is not in doubt, so it may only be a matter of time before suitable terms are reached for a match between Judit Polgar and Hou Yifan.

The live ratings for the top women players from ChessPro: