Chess grandmaster Magnus Carlsen makes U-turn, will return to World Blitz Championship after dress code dispute

Top-ranked chess player Magnus Carlsen is headed back to the World Blitz Championship on Monday after its governing body agreed to loosen a dress code that got him fined and denied a late-round game in another tournament for refusing to change out of jeans.

Lamenting the contretemps, International Chess Federation President Arkady Dvorkovich said in a statement Sunday that he'd let World Blitz Championship tournament officials consider allowing “appropriate jeans” with a jacket, and other “elegant minor deviations” from the dress code.

He said Carlsen's stand — which culminated in his quitting the tournament Friday — highlighted a need for more discussion “to ensure that our rules and their application reflect the evolving nature of chess as a global and accessible sport.”

Carlsen, meanwhile, said in a video posted Sunday on social media that he would play — and wear jeans — in the World Blitz Championship when it begins Monday.

“I think the situation was badly mishandled on their side,” the 34-year-old Norwegian grandmaster said. But he added that he loves playing blitz — a fast-paced form of chess — and wanted fans to be able to watch, and that he was encouraged by his discussions with the federation after Friday's showdown.

“I think we sort of all want the same thing,” he suggested in the video on his Take Take Take chess app's YouTube channel. “We want the players to be comfortable, sure, but also relatively presentable.”

The events began when Carlsen wore jeans and a sportcoat Friday to the Rapid World Championship, which is separate from but held in conjunction with the blitz event. The chess federation said Friday that longstanding rules prohibit jeans at those tournaments, and players are lodged nearby to make sartorial switch-ups easy if needed.

An official fined Carlsen $200 and asked him to change pants, but he refused and wasn't paired for a ninth-round game, the federation said at the time. The organisation noted that another grandmaster, Ian Nepomniachtchi, was fined earlier in the day for wearing sports shoes, changed and continued to play.

Carlsen has said that he offered to wear something else the next day, but officials were unyielding. He said “it became a bit of a matter of principle,” so he quit the rapid and blitz championships.

In the video posted Sunday, he questioned whether he had indeed broken a rule and said changing clothes would have needlessly interrupted his concentration between games. He called the punishment “unbelievably harsh”.

“Of course, I could have changed. Obviously, I didn't want to,” he said, and “I stand by that”.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by DNA staff and is published from PTI)