Chess grandmaster Magnus Carlsen rejoins tournament he quit over wearing jeans | Hacker News Reader

Chess grandmaster Magnus Carlsen rejoins tournament he quit over wearing jeans

news.sky.com

42 pointsaustinallegro67 comments

Just to clarify on what actually happened the first time:

He wasn't trying to protest the dress code or make a scene, it wasn't on his mind at all. He had been out for an appearance with a sponsor during a break, then came back to the venue for the next round, and didn't notice that he was wearing jeans and it didn't cross his mind that that would be a violation.

The controversy was about exactly how the penalty is imposed. The rule is a fine for the first violation and disqualification for multiple. It wasn't clear if his appearance for the day would count as one violation (so he could just incur the fine and wear correct clothing tomorrow), or if each round would be a separate violation. It also wasn't clear if he could play while in violation or would be excluded from each round until he changed. Precedent from other events wasn't clear for either of these. He thought he was told he could continue, but then FIDE said he would be excluded from each round until he changed, and then he said f--- it and withdrew entirely.

Also, what he withdrew from was the Rapid tournament. He is now joining the Blitz event - a separate tournament at the same venue following the rapid.

This is very good context. I've seen this poorly reported across news outlets and social media, and everyone seems to be spinning this as a discussion about whether jeans should be permitted and whether Magnus is acting like a diva.

I'm actually a little disappointed that he returned after a dress code change, because the way I see it, the problem was never the dress code itself, but how it was enforced. The rules say that you can be removed from the tournament in cases of gross misconduct. But there was nothing even close to gross misconduct here. Banning him from playing was just the arbiter power tripping.

People keep saying that the arbiter was just enforcing the rules. Yes, he was enforcing the rules, but he wasn't "just" enforcing the rules. He was using one of the heaviest sanctions for the most minor infraction.

The rules do say that a player will be removed for multiple infractions and the multiple infractions seem to come from the multiple rounds he would've played with his pants on. So the arbiter was "just" enforcing the rules.

Where does it say that? I can't find language to that effect in https://handbook.fide.com/files/handbook/wrbc_regulations_20....

> The International Chess Federation (FIDE) has now relaxed its dress code to allow "elegant minor deviations".

> Those deviations "may, in particular, include appropriate jeans matching the jacket", the new rules state.

> (…)

> "Special assistants" will be on hand to help judges decide whether players' outfits are acceptable, according to Mr Dvorkovich.

This whole saga is so unbelievably stupid. What’s the deal with the overly strict dress code in the first place?

Gives me the impression that you aren’t even allowed to play chess if you aren’t a nerd.

Sounds like a power move by the FIDE to project dominance over its members and a way to control its public perception

Well, they had to straight back down to keep Magnus, so it makes sense that they're trying to project a little control.

Yes, indeed. And all because the most important thing they are really protecting is that they are needed at all, when the reality is that they should be unceremoniously ejected from all such endeavors, once and for all.

True democracy should be present in all organizations, guided by compassion for all its members and the communities they affect.

It's time to retire the 'old guard'.

Old people rarely like to see things change from what they deemed 'acceptable' in their life. As people get older, most people tend to become more 'conservative' in their view of how things are changing. It is usually much worse in people of means, who are the people that have the money and connections to be FIDE or govt or business leaders, in other words: 'money people'. All such positions involve much politicking, which always involves ingratiating their own views on how the situation should be presented and seen.

Those sorts of people are always superfluous inefficiencies that gum up progress. The sooner we remove them from positions of influence, the sooner we can begin making this world a better place for one and all.

Tradition? I have no idea. But many events come with a dress code, and in many sports it is pretty strict even though it does not neccessarily have to be. I can see it both ways - the way you dress have nothing to do with how you play. But on the other hand, if there is supposed to be a certain atmosphere and mood at the event, a dress code is not unheard of.

I recall when Kenya (?) wanted to play with sleeveless jerseys in the FIFA World Cup, similar to have like they have in basketball. That did not work out - they had to add sleeves in short order.

EDIT: It was Cameroon in the Africa Cup. Link: https://www.puma-catchup.com/africa-cup-perfect-stage-scanda...

I find 'tradition' to nearly always be merely an excuse to keep acting like a purblind fool. They're just a bunch of self-superior non-thinkers who don't give a damn about anyone from other cultures. They tend to lack curiosity or compassion, so, as such, they are really just a bunch of dullards.

Not tradition. From what I got over the internet, apparently (normal) jeans where allowed in the past and a lot of players were wearing them.

As is the explanation all too often, dress codes are simply exclusionary. They're meant to exclude those that do not conform (whether or why they cannot conform or refuse to is secondary).

All the other bluster about tradition and standards or whatever else is all just covering fire to exclusionary policy. Whether that be race based, gender based, class based or otherwise, it's a basis for excluding or removing those outside your group who can't or won't bend to your requirements.

The one and only exception I know of to this is safety dress codes, like loose long hair or garments around certain machinery that could catch those. The rest can go to hell.

What would you say about a dress code at a wedding or a funeral? Are they decided in order to exclude?

Yes, they are. Typically these are enforced as flexible social norms, though, with individuals free to determine reasonable deviations within convention. They'll rarely be used to remove someone. It's an implied dress code, effectively, but with considerable grey area.

Some weddings are explicit, sure. And that's a couple's choice, to exclude some of their friends and family.

Don't you think there is a difference between accidental and intentional exclusion?

What's wrong with exclusion? They want to exclude people from the tournament that don't want to follow a traditional dress code.

Private facilities and groups are free to have those policies, but I also think its reasonable and expected for members to object and change the rules over time, especially the elites.

The kind of people who say this about White culture (tennis, golf, chess, etc) cream themselves over the rich vibrant culture of traditional dress in literally any non-White sport or ritual.

If a White professional sumo wrestler insisted on Speedos or boardshorts as a protest against discriminatory Japanese garb, would he be a freedom fighter, in your view? A disrespectful buffoon in mine.

If there isn't a physical or functional justification for the outfit, yea let people wear that they want. Who cares.

Wow chess is "white culture" now?

May I suggest you visit Wikipedia maybe?

Often, excluding people who won't conform is necessary if a community is to achieve its aims.

In soccer/footbal one can see how not having sleeves is a hit to the space of the walking advertisements that are uniforms these days.

Not having huge variations in uniforms for team sports seems to make some sense to me (you can't have everyone wearing a different color...) for something like tennis or chess I can't see how it matters much.

It’s to throw out people coming in tank tops. They don’t have a long list of donts. They have a short list of do’s. Do wear formal clothing like a dress coat and dress pants.

> They don’t have a long list of donts. They have a short list of do’s.

That is incorrect. They do have a list of don’ts. See 3b and 3d.

https://www.fide.com/images/stories/NEWS_2013/FIDE/Proposal_...

>appropriate jeans matching the jacket

Double denim?

Canadian Tuxedo.

Wouldn’t want to upset the (ahem) Status Quo.

Of course. How else would one match the jeans?

Lots of sports have dress codes. Having jeans matching jackets isn't more stupid than let say only "white or blue" gis in Judo, or only-white attire in some tennis tournaments. It's part of the folklore and many people are attached to traditions.

There are also many precedents of athletes challenging the dress-code, I can think of Serena Williams at French Tennis Open.

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/16/sport/serena-williams-ico...

In what world is chess a sport? It's a board game, they are not athletes, and marketing chess as a sport just comes across as either a financial decision, or delusional to me. The fact that chess isn't a sport doesn't make it any less valid or valuable, any less respectable, but it does mean that comparing it to tennis is downright odd.

Who are you to decide if chess is a sport or not? The practitioners think it is, so that's what matters.

It does not matter if we say it is a sport or not, it is not a sensible argument because the point of what uniforms are allowed and what not in sports have either to do with functionality (certain pieces of clothes can improve performance, and rules have to assert which are the specific bounds for that) or advertising/other reasons (a lot of which are actually _bad_ reasons, see certain female dress codes). These arguments have nothing to do with chess, so it makes no sense to apply this line of argumentation here.

Uniforms in sports have often to do with tradition (on top of the aspects you mentioned). Look at Golf, Tennis or Judo/BJJ dress codes for instance. Most sports have a dress code and if you look into the details, there are often arbitrary elements.

Many other social activities which you may not call sport have dress codes too. On the top of my head, I can think of Bridge or Snooker. Nothing really fundamentally peculiar with Chess. I don't blame Carlsen for asking to review the rules though.

Just to make a point here, Judo/BJJ stand out because their "dress codes" are actually part of how the sport works in practice. A lot of throws and holds involve the gi, so standardizing what's worn (which has been done in the case of Judo for a very long time) isn't just aesthetic or traditional. I don't believe that in the case of, for example golf, the dress code is functional.

I was specifically referring to the color. You can't show up with a green gi. Actually, it was controversial when blue gis were introduced in the late 90s. In Judo, it's currently only white or blue.

But different chess tournaments have different dress codes. Maybe FIDE has a most strict one but I don’t see how this is a universal chess tradition.

Moreover, in the examples you give clothes also serve a practical use within the game itself, except maybe golf not as significantly. But golf is also another peculiar case of a sport and one that carries different traditions. Eg esp for BJJ I would say clothes are important part of the game in ways that it is not for chess.

I agree that FIDE’s dress code is prob more similar to dress code of social activities like bridge. But I would also expect some people to get confused over how strict these are from time to time, and ppl certainly do not become grandmasters by memorising dress code rules. This has happened before anyway and ppl did not think it was an intentional act of activism to dress in shorts either [0].

[0] https://www.chess.com/news/view/dress-code-incident-at-world...

So players should be allowed to play shirtless, in a bikini, in underwear?

Maybe it's stupid that it's this strict, but many of these “sports” (or whatever you want to call them) have a dress code.

Chess's is definitely not stricter than (e.g.) snooker's.

Do they think it's a sport? From what I can see on places like r/Chess and Chess.com that's far from being the case; at best it's an ongoing debate. Mostly though it seems to be a matter of marketing, not by the average player, but by the industries which cater to them and want to grow the game.

For me though, I think a good test is that if you can play it via long-term correspondence, it isn't a sport or any sort of athletic activity. I don't feel like gatekeeping sport as strenuous physical activity, but there surely has to be at least some somatic component.

Chess isn’t a sport. How many game tournaments have dress codes?

It is a mental sport

They probably have some sort of dress code (no flip flops, no shirtless), but usually not this strict.

You do need to have a minimum though.

Otherwise you get comedy like this at a Magic the Gathering tournament. (warning lots of plumbers crack)

https://imgur.com/a/grand-prix-richmond-crackstyle-SjcgE

Your argument is very weak.

The picture you've shared is at least two decades old at this point. And people showing their asscracks can also happen with suits, especially if someone is not used to wearing a suit often (e.g. it's not perfectly fit to their body shape).

On top of that if organizers are hoarding hundreds of people in what looks like a multi-purpose location on the cheapest chairs/tables possible, then why should these people who need to sit and concentrate for many hours be forced to do it in expensive/rarely-used clothing.

>people showing their asscracks can also happen with suits, especially if someone is not used to wearing a suit

citation needed

> You do need to have a minimum though.

But my question was precisely why is the minimum so high? Sure, maybe don’t allow someone to play naked or with a t-shirt stamped with gore or racist imagery. But jeans? Come on. Looking at the rules, I wonder if they’d also, for example, prevent a man from playing in a skirt that would otherwise be acceptable for a woman.

https://www.fide.com/images/stories/NEWS_2013/FIDE/Proposal_...

A denim vest? This sounds like an episode of Seinfeld.

> What’s the deal with the overly strict dress code in the first place?

Some organisations have a great deal of cultural inertia

If I start a club that requires all members to wear red trousers, then people who hate red trousers won't join, while people who love them will join in great numbers.

Members who are ambivalent about red trousers won't feel comfortable enforcing the rules, so they won't take the junior positions of power that lead to senior positions of power.

I'm pretty sure this is why London still have some private members' clubs that will insist on all men wearing a tie.

Lots of players have problems with FIDE, who act like they own the game of chess. Magnus is simply the only one who can afford to push back.

How the situation was handled is unbelievable. Unlike FIDE, players are there to work and concentrate. Telling people to change between games is just insulting.

The smugness of Sutovsky (FIDE "CEO") and the chief arbiter in the interviews on the topic is off the charts. Anand was more diplomatic, but also a raging bureaucrat.

I presume that Dvorkovich (FIDE president) and the sponsors had a stern talk with several FIDE people.

It does look to the public like Magnus got his will like a three-year-old, but there are more issues behind the scenes. It is good to see a victory over the cancel bureaucracy and some return to normalcy.

This is not about dress code--it's about inconsistent enforcement and the letter of the rules. Zaven Andriasian was wearing jeans on the same day. Nepo was fined for wearing a jacket [0].

FIDE confirmed that his outfit was appropriate and the arbiters did not exercise discretion. Essentially, it's an argument between the spirit and letter of the rules. Magnus agreed he'd made a mistake, but wanted to change for tomorrow rather than in-between rounds so he did not lose concentration. He was removed from all pairings for not changing immediately.

The other aspect people have been citing is that Magnus wants to play Freestyle Chess and faster time formats. But FIDE has been very unsuccessful in trying to hold a Freestyle Chess tournament. FIDE is very reliant on Magnus to draw in sponsors, and yet he does not seem to be getting what he wants regarding WCC changes (see his 2014 letter), Freestyle Chess, or faster time formats.

0: https://x.com/lachesisq/status/1872736455132676251

The year is 2024, and chess has devolved into a strategic battle over who is wearing the pants.

The title is slightly misleading. He did not rejoin the World Rapid, he rejoined the World Blitz. Same venue/organizers, but the standings/results are separate.

HN when Carlsen dropped out of the tournament rather than change his jeans:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42527572 338 points | throwup238 | 3 days ago | 423 comments

I don't know all the history, but Magnus comes off as above the game.

“I am playing at least one more day here in New York and, if I do well, another day after that,” Really? And I saw another quote that said "f*k you"

Whatever his frustrations are with the governing body, the above are unacceptable behavior. I don't understand why they need to bend over backwards and modify the rules and mollify him.

He has also accused another player of cheating, after he lost, then he settles out of court. And he doesn't want to participate in the world championship, but chooses to make comments about the quality of games.

> Whatever his frustrations are with the governing body

Changes wouldn't happen to governing bodies if people didn't resist.

> “I am playing at least one more day here in New York and, if I do well, another day after that,” Really?

This is taken a bit out of context. Day 1 is a qualification phase. Only the top 8 after that ends up playing on day 2. Saying «I will play two more days» would be more arrogant since it would imply he thinks he would easily be top 8.

EDIT: It could however be considered a subtle criticism of the format. Previously there were two days with 10-11 games per day. With the new qualification system you’re suddenly more dependent on having a good first day. Many players have expressed that they thought it was more fair to have more games over two days.

Thanks for the clarification on this particular point. I was not aware of it.

I’ve been following this over the years and while I’m a bit tired of it to address your other points directly, let me at the very least say that while he’s clearly very emotional and not always reacting in the most productive way, there’s typically a somewhat sensible reason behind it. He’s not a complete crybaby. He clearly cares a lot about the game, and he’s met a lot of unnecessary resistance.

But yea, he’s been acting far from perfect the last few years.

> Sven Magnus Øen Carlsen[a] (born 30 November 1990) is a Norwegian chess grandmaster. Carlsen is a five-time World Chess Champion, five-time World Rapid Chess Champion, the reigning seven-time World Blitz Chess Champion and the reigning Chess World Cup Champion. He has held the No. 1 position in the FIDE world chess rankings since 1 July 2011 and trails only Garry Kasparov in time spent as the highest-rated player in the world.[1] His peak rating of 2882 is the highest in history. He also holds the record for the longest unbeaten streak at an elite level in classical chess at 125 games.[2][3]

Magnus is a giant and a celebrity in the chess world. It would be like hosting the G7 but disinviting the US from the meetings because Trump wore a sweater.

Top comment in a similar recent thread [0] sums it up nicely:

> The context in which this happened matters a lot.

> There have been tensions between the FIDE organization and top players like Carlsen since the latter have been promoting an alternative chess organization around Freestyle chess (aka Chesss960), which has slightly different rules.

> I.e. this is less about "dress code enforcement" and it is more about "Carlsen is fed up with the FIDE organization in general".

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42527572

Magnus can afford to skip any tournament he wants, but if doesn't participate, the tournament is a much worse one. One could argue a tournament where the best in the game doesn't want to participate is a lower level one.

Magnus is not the best at Blitz, and was already doing poorly before he quit.

He is the reigning world champion and has won 5 out of the last 6 world championships in Blitz. By what criteria is he "not the best at Blitz"?

[edit] You might be referring to rapid, as you mention he was doing poorly before he dropped out. However, he was also the defending rapid world champion and won 3 out of the 4 last championships there (excluding the one that just finished that he dropped out of). He was indeed not doing great in that tournament, but he was still in the running to possibly win it.

Yes, I mixed them up, and you are of course right as proved by his joint win of the event!

"Chess, Chess, Chess. DO IT."

PR. Come on.

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