For one brief, unblemished instant last week, the imminent world board games contest clash between Indian holder Viswanathan Anand and Israeli contestant Boris Gelfand was shaping up to be the second most attractive match of the year.

Viswanathan – Boris, which starts May 10 in Moscow, assure to be a fascinating fight for hard-core chess junkies, but it’s also a grouping with basically zero sporting interest for the broader presentation public, at least for those outside of the contestant’s individual hometowns.

By contrast, the official-sounding declaration that Hungary’s Judit Polgar the most female player in the record of the game had determined to take on China’s Hou Yifan the 17-year-old reigning women’s world winner and a rising superstar in an eight-game, mixed traditional and quick match in Beijing starting Sept. 26 had an exhilarating 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 protected 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 and is prepared 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 prospect.

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 conventionality to play. Still, in the interest of ginning up material to make the match a reality, we nearby here a sample of what might have been and motionless may be, with games from both players early in their careers that gave a assure of greatness.

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Chess is more than fun and games. That is the point driven home by two new exhibits, which opened Friday, at the lately opened World Chess Hall of celebrity in St. Louis.

World Chess celebrity of Fame Director Susan Barrett said the organization’s goal isn’t manifestly to teach everyone to play chess but rather to give self-assurance people to look at chess in a new way. Those involved in improving their skills can hop across the street to the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis.

Our goal is to show how chess is really a symbol. It’s astonishing that everybody can understand, even if you don’t play chess. It’s cross-cultural; it’s cross-historic. Everyone understands chess in some style. Chess game has a place in our culture as a symbol for different things. The great thing is we can take chess, a very specific subject, and turn it into chess in history, chess in art, chess in music,Barrett said.

Amanda Cook, media contact for the World Chess Hall of Fame, likens the social insinuation of chess to the game Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, in which players connect Hollywood figures to the actor in six steps or fewer.

Perhaps the more obvious tie to the edifying significance of chess is the first exhibit, which features the work of photojournalist Harry Benson. Benson had restricted access to chess grandmaster Bobby Fischer during his famous 1972 match against Russian winner Boris Spassky. That match became a symbol of Cold War tensions, and for a time, Fischer was seen as one of the most significant political figures of the time, Barrett said.

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