1.)
"Saturday, 28 Dec 2024 00:33 FIDE statement regarding Magnus Carlsen’s dress code breach" https://www.fide.com/news/3363
2.)
"Chess: Carlsen disqualified in New York after refusing to change out of jeans
The world No 1 was defaulted from the World Rapid Championship and has also chosen to withdraw from the World Blitz saying ‘it became a matter of principle’"
If chess is a sport,
then the mind deserves its own professional chess shoes
"Earlier in the day, another participant, Mr. Ian Nepomniachtchi, was also fined for breaching the dress code by wearing sports shoes. However, Mr. Nepomniachtchi complied, changed into approved attire, and continued to play in the tournament," the statement added."
So the only possible way for him to be disqualified is if he hung around for the rest of the tournament repeating the same thing over and over again? Sounds like newspeak logic.
It looks like he was disqualified from one event and then withdrew for the other related event. He said he would change his pants for tomorrow but was told that he had to change before the start of the next game which was scheduled for today. When he indicated that he would not do so he was disqualified, ie. FIDE removed him from the schedule.
I think that is why some people enjoy John Daly in golfing. For those unfamiliar, look up him up on google images. He is known for usually wearing some sweat pants and smoking a cigar in tournament play.
Not only Magnus was saying he would withdraw if FIDE didn’t approve them also participating in the Freestyle league. Hikaru Nakamura was also saying he’d withdraw if FIDE forced them to choose between leagues.
FIDE conceded — and then punished Magnus for his jeans and refused to allow Hikaru to have cameras. It’s hard not to see it as political, given the context and fact FIDE went after multiple top level players.
What's your point? I'm not suggesting that Sundar ALWAYS wears jeans and NEVER wears suits.
I'm saying that it is ACCEPTABLE to wear jeans, even in a professional setting. Jeans are "smart business attire." (If the dress code were "formal," that would be something else. But it isn't.)
Had a friend who sold boats for a living. One day he was at a business meeting where the attire was listed as "business attire". When one of his buddies, another salesman, showed up wearing shorts, a t-shirt and sunglasses, my friend made a snarky remark about him not getting the memo about the attire. His buddy responds, "I don't know what business you're in, but I am in the boat business."
> I wonder if this guy is slowly going off the deep end like a number of other past chess masters. He's been such a great example for aspiring players for a while now but I can't help but worry.
I don't know much else about him, but nothing in this story reads to me like someone going off the deep end. It sounds like someone who picked a perhaps-unfortunate hill to die on, though if you aren't willing to take risks to argue against silly rules when you're at the top of your game then when will you, but not someone losing his faculties.
Well there are other circumstances too. He didn't defend his classical chess champion title. He likes his alcohol.
He hasn't gone off the deep end (past tense). But is it a process currently in progress? Only possible to say in hindsight but does certainly seem possible.
Probably just burned out from chess, especially training the whole day for competitions.
We are animals and eventually the brain will rebel against extreme repetitive mental effort that is perceived to be at least partially useless (and given he's already been the world champion, it's easy for part of him to think there's no point in training).
He's one of a few extremely high profile players to publicly support (and maybe financially back / have a stake in?) Freestyle Chess, which may or may not be a venture capital-backed attempt to force a schism in the FIDE World Chess Championship.
He is shareholders of chess.com since they bought out Play Magnus. He is not losing it. He has competing economic interests to FIDE and very little interest into being cooperative with them more than is strictly necessary.
Some other guy interviewed by Norwegian television also came out from the arbiter room, but he didn't get fined. His pants looked like worn jeans, but since it wasn't denim material (only made to look like ugly jeans) it was ok. Highlights how weird the rules are.
I used to frequent fancy private parties with people who mostly all had money and nobility titles (EU). Unless it was a ball (which I used to go to do) that had a strict dress code, most men had nice cars, nice shoes and... Dress jeans.
I wonder if there is even a single player in the tournament who cares about the dress code. It is hard to imagine anyone who was serious about chess caring about the material a player’s pants are made of. No, I think this falls squarely in the realm of bureaucratic administrators who have nothing better to do than assert their power and maintain the illusion of a connection between talent (great chess players) and the trivial signaling games of the upper class (the style of pants one is wearing).
> I think this falls squarely in the realm of bureaucratic administrators who have nothing better to do than assert their power and maintain the illusion of a connection between talent (great chess players) and the trivial signaling games of the upper class (the style of pants one is wearing).
I concur except about the bureaucratic administrators. I think they do this because the upper class will replace them if they don't do the work of asserting the upper class's power.
The upper class has been wearing expensive jeans for a very long time.
The upper class doesn’t need dress code. They know they are the upper class. Dress codes are for petit bourgeois and the upper middle class who try to pretend but everyone knows they are actually middle class.
The upper class, however, seems to care about making other people follow a dress code. Think uniforms for a chauffeur, the long-standing rules around wearing white at Wimbledon, etc.
Possibly this is not the actual dress code? Or I'm missing something.
3.a. The following is acceptable for men players, captains, head of delegation.
-- Suits, ties, dressy pants, trousers, jeans...
3.b. The following is NOT acceptable for men players, captains, head of delegation.
-- Beach-wear slips, profanity and nude or semi-nude pictures printed on shirts, torn pants or jeans...
The only thing that's more ridiculous than an antiquated dress code is an antiquated dress code that's selectively applied to some players and not to others. Other players had to change, so FIDE could hardly make an exception for Carlsen. If Carlsen cares so little about the tournament that he can't even be bothered to change his pants, he should probably not have participated in the first place.
"At the time of his default, Carlsen had scored 5/8 and was a point and a half behind the leaders, with little chance of retaining his title."
EDIT: I find it hilarious that this is downvoted. It's incredibly cogent to the point. If Magnus was leading the event I guarantee he wouldn't have pursued this distraction.
It's an odds thing. He was unlikely to win. There are some very strong opponents. Could he have won? Sure. But note that he didn't protest the dress code at the beginning of the event.
And sure, he's "fed up" with FIDE (in the sense that everyone who thinks they are bigger than a league does). So why did he participate? If he had the purported principles, he should just withdraw from FIDE sanctioned events, no?
I think if anybody's to be commended for their principle it's probably the organisers? They have their dress code, he violated it, was warned, continued to violate it, and they enforced the rule despite his name.
Precisely this. The dress code was not a secret. Once Carlsen had little chance of winning the event he decided to make it about himself with this display. No one should commend this selfish arrogance, and in no universe is it "principle" to exhibit such prima donna behaviour for attention (and to conveniently exit from a likely loss).
Magnus is a tremendous chess player. He's also, by all evidence, a massive asshole, and continuously shows boorish behaviour and terrible sportsmanship.
And yes, he is a massive asshole, at least in regards to chess. He is an incredibly sore loser, constantly makes it about himself (at the cost of every other competitor, such as in this case: they can't have beaten him, but instead he had to do this spectacle to give himself an excuse to exit and to asterisk their win). He has done this sort of thing again and again.
He has loads and loads of fanboys who will always excuse this behaviour. Who'll say that he has earned the right to be like this. They'll adulate poor sportsmanship like showing up terribly late "like a boss", as if this isn't contemptible behaviour. Eh.
And he can. He might be the greatest chess player ever. Doesn't change that he's obnoxious and boorish.
The reason why Magnus leaving is a spectacle is because of us and what we want out of our superstars, otherwise he's just another player, and players drop out all the time for any reason and nobody cares.
The masses are the ones who elevate him and assume that because he plays a game so well then the spotlight must be on him. Magnus did not seize the spotlight of our attention and he never owned it.
No one is asking him to act like this. Many other greats across many domains manage to not be like this. His performance alone gets him loads of attention, and this is all just distractions.
And yes, people do drop out. It happens. Magnus is famously a very sore loser, however, so when he suddenly is a Dress Code Liberty Fighter to drop out, it should be called out for the ridiculous ruse it is. That people are actually celebrating it and talking about his principles...how profoundly gullible can people be?
The guy has an insane number of fanboys, however. It's absolutely bizarre.
They fined/censored him. He accepted the consequence and said "ok, I'll change as soon as I'm back at my hotel." They then hit him with a second infraction, for still being out of dress code.
I'm not a chess dress code rules lawyer, but I think the principle here is that the judge was power tripping and hit him twice for a single dress code violation.
In my experience "dress code" is very selectively enforced. Men are expected to wear very formal dress, that may limit their breathing and body cooling!
While women get away with tshirts, sweat pants and flip flops!
This is sport event after all, and he is an athlete!
It is like asking female athletes to wear corset and long dress, because that was traditional dress in Victorian England!
Disagree. FIDE's dress code has double standards, there was a dude in chinos made to look like jeans and they were allowed. To me it seems like a very antiquated rule that needs to be reworked/abolished to keep up with the times.
It's not that I think the dress code is great, I just think it is what it is, and the one's who can say 'it's a matter of principle' (and get my sympathy anyway) are the ones that uphold that written code of the event, and don't waive it for a famous participant; not the famous participant who.. just wants to violate it basically.
The principal is “I should be allowed to wear reasonable everyday attire”
Standing by the principle was when faced with an ultimatum:
“Change now or else.”
He chose
“Naw, I’ll just leave.”
I understand that, and I'm saying the organisers also have the dress code principle, and stood by it when faced with 'oh but the violator is a very famous player, and this might make the news tomorrow'.
I think they come off better, personally. I'm not saying that should be the dress code, he shouldn't be allowed to wear jeans or whatever, or even that it's bad of him to decide not to play rather than to play in jeans. I just don't think 'it became a matter of principle' is a great argument for him, because it just makes me think better of the organisers for similarly standing by theirs.
If two people have conflicting principles and both choose to stand by their principles then they'll be in conflict, but you're not obliged to pick a winner.
the sense check i get from hammer's interview with hikaru is that they think magnus was targetted, and that where typically they wouldnt mind and the "oh, yeah ill wear fancy pants tomorrow" would typically be fine, magnus was targetted because of the freestyle chess negotiations.
another player was not fined or punished at all for wearing basically the same thing
Also, this is a world rapid blitz tournament - not a "classical" chess tournament. Full length jeans is effectively business casual by today's standards. If a player said they made a mistake because they were late and confirmed that they would change their attire the next day, they should be fined but permitted to play with a warning.
The principle here isn’t about the dress code per se (Carlsen hasn’t made much fuss about it earlier[1]), but the fact that a minor mistake on his part (he chose the wrong pants) is being punished severely. What would would be wrong with giving him a $200 fine and warning him he would be disqualified if he didn’t abide by it next day? Why is it so important to change immediately when you’re still very much dressed acceptable? Stressing about your clothing is not what you want to do when you’re focused on making a come back.
The reason is (according to Carlsen) of course that FIDE is driven by a strict adherence of «rules» which are defined by a small set of people in power. Whenever something happens they always say «oh, but these are the rules», but the process for changing the rules is very one-sided and power driven. This was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Yet another example of a silly unnecessary rule.
[1]: In an earlier WC he got stuck in traffic and arrived in ski clothing, but changed after the first round.
That is not what happened. Carlsen refused to change on the same day because it was "a matter of principle" (his words) -- not because there was insufficient time to.
" that FIDE is driven by a strict adherence of «rules» which are defined by a small set of people in power. Whenever something happens they always say «oh, but these are the rules», but the process for changing the rules is very one-sided and power driven. "
This every government or organization that has ever existed. Every human group from beginning of time. Left or Right, up or down.
He didn't protest being fined. Rather, he (and many other pundits) think being forfeited for a dress code violation is outrageous. (And it doesn't even follow the letter of the law - nowhere is it explicitly stated that violating the dress code can lead to forfeiting a round.)
If "wearing jeans is not okay for someone playing chess" is a principle, it's a pretty stupid one. Being consistent about enforcing dumb rules is not a virtue when the alternative is not to have dumb rules in the first place
This appears to be a weekly chess column in the newspaper, and they all seem to have a chess puzzle in them[1]. I suspect in the paper it would be at the end of the column, with the answer on another page. It's perhaps a bit of an inelegant way to present it on the web version, but that's probably some sort of tradeoff with how the Guardian's website works, and if it's worth adding some sort of special case presentation for the chess column, which probably isn't exactly the most read bit of the site.
473 comments
[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 369 ms ] threadApparently it's true!??
1.) "Saturday, 28 Dec 2024 00:33 FIDE statement regarding Magnus Carlsen’s dress code breach" https://www.fide.com/news/3363
2.) "Chess: Carlsen disqualified in New York after refusing to change out of jeans The world No 1 was defaulted from the World Rapid Championship and has also chosen to withdraw from the World Blitz saying ‘it became a matter of principle’"
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2024/dec/27/chess-carlsen-...
"Earlier in the day, another participant, Mr. Ian Nepomniachtchi, was also fined for breaching the dress code by wearing sports shoes. However, Mr. Nepomniachtchi complied, changed into approved attire, and continued to play in the tournament," the statement added."
Admittedly I’m not into show for show’s sake.
Reportedly he was not sure he'd even bother to show up to this event[2].
[1]: https://www.chess.com/blog/Eternal-Pawn/chess-at-the-crossro...
[2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErKi4NcLlOc
FIDE conceded — and then punished Magnus for his jeans and refused to allow Hikaru to have cameras. It’s hard not to see it as political, given the context and fact FIDE went after multiple top level players.
The title sponsor is Google, a well-known tech company.
Here's Google CEO Sundar Pichai in GQ: https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/lifestyle/article/sundar-picha...
https://static01.nyt.com/images/2023/05/04/multimedia/04even...
Another event, another dress code.
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQfQwah...
Edit: removed extraneous arguments. Point here is that Pichai observes event-specific dress codes rather than assuming that Google’s code applies.
I'm saying that it is ACCEPTABLE to wear jeans, even in a professional setting. Jeans are "smart business attire." (If the dress code were "formal," that would be something else. But it isn't.)
Did I make it so obscurely?
EDIT: Actually, the poster above was not accurate. The dress code is found here- https://www.fide.com/docs/regulations/wrbc_regulations_2024_...
And it was much more precise than "smart business attire.".
he chose to withdraw. he's not happy with fide anyway.
I don't know much else about him, but nothing in this story reads to me like someone going off the deep end. It sounds like someone who picked a perhaps-unfortunate hill to die on, though if you aren't willing to take risks to argue against silly rules when you're at the top of your game then when will you, but not someone losing his faculties.
He hasn't gone off the deep end (past tense). But is it a process currently in progress? Only possible to say in hindsight but does certainly seem possible.
We are animals and eventually the brain will rebel against extreme repetitive mental effort that is perceived to be at least partially useless (and given he's already been the world champion, it's easy for part of him to think there's no point in training).
FIDE is lost in the 80’s, and someone else is going to figure out how to make chess an entertainment sport and make a truly enormous amount of money.
https://x.com/MagnusCarlsen/status/1872819038554148882
FYI 'OOTD' == 'outfit of the day'
I concur except about the bureaucratic administrators. I think they do this because the upper class will replace them if they don't do the work of asserting the upper class's power.
The upper class doesn’t need dress code. They know they are the upper class. Dress codes are for petit bourgeois and the upper middle class who try to pretend but everyone knows they are actually middle class.
The billionaire they were working for wore stuff that was expensive, old and hence comfortable. He didn't have to play to anyone.
He did dress up to meet the president though, he had to play a part.
The president has to dress well all the time, he is always playing a part, in front of the whole world.
Wear your part. Or don't, if you don't want any part in all of this (which seems to be Magnus's motivation, or lack of it).
https://web.archive.org/web/20200925160442id_/https://www.fi...
But I wonder if another player complained to the administrators.
3.a. The following is acceptable for men players, captains, head of delegation. -- Suits, ties, dressy pants, trousers, jeans...
3.b. The following is NOT acceptable for men players, captains, head of delegation. -- Beach-wear slips, profanity and nude or semi-nude pictures printed on shirts, torn pants or jeans...
They were being belligerent.
A: To see administrators administrate.
B: To see chess players play chess.
Someone somewhere has lost sight of a most basic fundamental that everything else they may care about rests on.
hikaru was trying to get camera feed of his games to stream, and fide said no
EDIT: I find it hilarious that this is downvoted. It's incredibly cogent to the point. If Magnus was leading the event I guarantee he wouldn't have pursued this distraction.
He’s been fed up with FIDE for a while if you’ve been paying attention. There’s a lot more to this than just his pants.
And sure, he's "fed up" with FIDE (in the sense that everyone who thinks they are bigger than a league does). So why did he participate? If he had the purported principles, he should just withdraw from FIDE sanctioned events, no?
Changing organizations like FIDE doesn't happen by withdrawing.
I think if anybody's to be commended for their principle it's probably the organisers? They have their dress code, he violated it, was warned, continued to violate it, and they enforced the rule despite his name.
Magnus is a tremendous chess player. He's also, by all evidence, a massive asshole, and continuously shows boorish behaviour and terrible sportsmanship.
And yes, he is a massive asshole, at least in regards to chess. He is an incredibly sore loser, constantly makes it about himself (at the cost of every other competitor, such as in this case: they can't have beaten him, but instead he had to do this spectacle to give himself an excuse to exit and to asterisk their win). He has done this sort of thing again and again.
He has loads and loads of fanboys who will always excuse this behaviour. Who'll say that he has earned the right to be like this. They'll adulate poor sportsmanship like showing up terribly late "like a boss", as if this isn't contemptible behaviour. Eh.
And he can. He might be the greatest chess player ever. Doesn't change that he's obnoxious and boorish.
The masses are the ones who elevate him and assume that because he plays a game so well then the spotlight must be on him. Magnus did not seize the spotlight of our attention and he never owned it.
And yes, people do drop out. It happens. Magnus is famously a very sore loser, however, so when he suddenly is a Dress Code Liberty Fighter to drop out, it should be called out for the ridiculous ruse it is. That people are actually celebrating it and talking about his principles...how profoundly gullible can people be?
The guy has an insane number of fanboys, however. It's absolutely bizarre.
I can’t even figure out what the principle was.
I'm not a chess dress code rules lawyer, but I think the principle here is that the judge was power tripping and hit him twice for a single dress code violation.
Yes, we have. That ship has sailed long ago.
But, in this context, specifically, the GP might have meant 'censured' instead of 'censored' and it was autocorrect or mental confusion.
This is sport event after all, and he is an athlete!
It is like asking female athletes to wear corset and long dress, because that was traditional dress in Victorian England!
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-12-29/chess-player-fined-ov...
You can't call a rule new, which is nagging them for nearly a decade now:
https://www.chess.com/news/view/dress-code-incident-at-world...
I think they come off better, personally. I'm not saying that should be the dress code, he shouldn't be allowed to wear jeans or whatever, or even that it's bad of him to decide not to play rather than to play in jeans. I just don't think 'it became a matter of principle' is a great argument for him, because it just makes me think better of the organisers for similarly standing by theirs.
another player was not fined or punished at all for wearing basically the same thing
The reason is (according to Carlsen) of course that FIDE is driven by a strict adherence of «rules» which are defined by a small set of people in power. Whenever something happens they always say «oh, but these are the rules», but the process for changing the rules is very one-sided and power driven. This was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Yet another example of a silly unnecessary rule.
[1]: In an earlier WC he got stuck in traffic and arrived in ski clothing, but changed after the first round.
This every government or organization that has ever existed. Every human group from beginning of time. Left or Right, up or down.
But what function does the helmet serve?
Protection from the biggest danger in chess, being hit by flying pieces.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2DaDziImgY
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/sport/series/leonard-barden-ches...