World chess great Magnus Carlsen has quit a major tournament after being told he could not participate while wearing jeans.
The Norwegian was defending his World Rapid and Blitz Chess Championships in New York on Friday when governing body FIDE made the request.
He said he offered to change his trousers for the following day before being fined and told he needed to change straight away.
In a statement, FIDE said its dress code regulations were designed to ‘ensure professionalism and fairness for all participants’.
Carlsen is a prominent figure in the world of chess and has been involved in controversy in recent years.
Last year, the world-champion settled a long-running legal dispute after accusing a rival of using ‘anal beads’ to beat him
Chess icon Magnus Carlsen quit a major championship after being told to take off his jeans
Carlsen told officials he would wear trousers the next day, but was told to change immediatley
The multiple world champion responded ‘I’m out, f*** you’ when told he could not continue in his attire
Carlsen decided to withdraw from the championships on Friday because he was not dressed appropriately, resulting in a $200 fine imposed by the chess governing body. Despite being given a chance to change into the correct attire, Carlsen refused.
However, after being told he would not be allowed to continue, he reportedly responded ‘I’m out, f*** you’.
Carlsen, world champion between 2013 and 2023, said he had a lunch meeting before the round and had to change quickly.
Speaking to Take Take Take, a chess-following app, Carlsen explained that he had put on a shirt, jacket, and even changed his shoes, but had overlooked the dress code regarding jeans.
Carlsen admitted that he had not paid attention to the clothing requirements and received a fine as well as a warning that he would not be allowed to participate unless he changed into the proper attire after the third round of the competition.
‘I said “I’ll change tomorrow if that’s OK, I didn’t even realise it today”, but they said, “well you have to change now”. At that point it became a bit of a matter of principle for me.’
The 34-year-old added that he would not appeal the decision, saying: ‘Honestly, I am too old at this point to care too much.
‘If this is what they want to do. I guess it goes both ways, right.
Carlsen is a highly-regarded in the chess world due to his magnitude of success in the sport
Carlsen will now not compete in World Blitz Chess Championships as a ‘matter of principle’
‘Nobody wants to back down and this is where we are. It’s fine by me. I’ll probably head off to somewhere where the weather is a bit nicer than here.’
He had played a few rounds before officials noticed his attire, and then the drama began to unfold.
FIDE chief executive, Emil Sutovsky, has since come out to confirm that Carlsen was not banned from the tournaments.
‘FIDE did not ban Magnus from the tournament,’ Sutovsky wrote on X. ‘He was not paired in round 9. He can continue tomorrow.
‘We gave Magnus more than enough time to change. But as he had stated himself in his interview – it became a matter of principle for him.
‘Rules are applicable to all the participants, and it would be unfair towards all players who respected the dress-code, and those who were previously fined.
‘The dress-code was known way before, and it was suggested by Athletes Commission, consisting of grandmasters.
‘Said that, I am sorry for the situation that occured – FIDE was very welcoming to Magnus and his family, and we never wanted it to explode. However I fully back a decision of the Chief Arbiter Alex Holowczak.’
The Norwegian grandmaster is the most high-profile name in chess, having won 64 major titles in the sport.
The 34-year-old has already won 12 blitz and rapid championship titles combined in the past, however, his career has not been without controversy.
The sport was rocked by rumors that a chess coach had told his rival Hans Niemann what moves to play by sending buzzes to a sex toy hidden in his body.
However, after being cleared of cheating, Niemann sued Carlsen for $100million for ruining his career after the world champion suggested he cheated his way to a stunning victory against him at a tournament in 2022.
The lawsuit was dismissed in the summer of 2023 and Niemann reached an agreement with the sport’s online platform Chess.com.
The self-taught grandmaster from San Francisco was rocketing up the world rankings when he was drawn to play against Carlsen at the Sinquefield Cup in St Louis, Missouri.
But with Carlsen playing white and given the first move, few expected to see Niemann’s powerful defense dismantle his opponent and claim the game.
‘It must be embarrassing for the world champion to lose to me,’ he told reporters. ‘I feel bad for him!’
Norway’s Carlsen (pictured at the 44th Chess Olympiad in 2022) accused Niemann of cheating
Chess grandmaster Niemann (pictured) has been cleared of allegations made by a rival that he used vibrating anal beads to cheat
He credited a ‘ridiculous miracle’, for his victory, claiming he had watched a video of Carlsen using a similar game plan in a game four years earlier that morning.
Critics claimed the explanation did not hold water and Carlsen withdrew from the tournament, with a cryptic tweet of Portuguese football manager José Mourinho saying: ‘If I speak, I’m in big trouble, and I don’t want to be in big trouble.’
The organizers immediately beefed-up security measures including a 15-minute delay in the broadcast of the moves and increased radio-frequency identification checks as rumors swirled that Niemann had cheated.
Chess bloggers jokingly suggested that some players had used ‘anal beads’ for years, a rumour which was amplified by Elon Musk with a misquote from German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer.
‘Talent hits a target no one else can hit, genius hits a target no one can see (cause it’s in your butt),’ the Tesla boss tweeted.
A week later, Carlsen fueled the scandal when he resigned after just one move in an online match against Niemann.
He added that he’d be happy to play a game of chess while naked: ‘They want me to strip fully naked? I’ll do it.
‘I don’t care because I know that I’m clean and I’m willing to subject myself to what you want me to play.’
Niemann has competed in tournaments all over the world, taking part in his first US rated tournament when he was just eight years old. He is pictured at a match in 2013 and right in 2014, at age 10, when he became the youngest winner of the Mechanics Institute Chess Club tournament in its 159-year history
As an eighth grade student in 2017, Niemann won first place in a local chess championship. He is pictured playing with friend Gavin Spandow, who described Hans as ‘fiercely competitive and far from humble’
As the rumours mounted Niemann underwent a humiliating 90-second body-scan in front of laughing spectators before entering a tournament a few weeks later.
Chess.com banned Niemann and later published a report saying he had likely cheated more than 100 times in online games.
The prodigy admitted to cheating online between the ages of 12 and 16, but he denied any wrongdoing while contesting over-the-board games.
And he sued Carlsen, the website, and Japanese grandmaster for defamation, claiming that Carlsen paid another grandmaster €300 to shout ‘Cheater Hans’ from a public balcony during a tournament.
That lawsuit was thrown out by a Missouri judge in June but Chess.com said it had readmitted Niemann after he promised no further legal action against it.
‘We have reached an agreement with Hans Niemann to put our differences behind us and move forward together without further litigation,’ the website said in a statement.
‘We would also like to reaffirm that we stand by the findings in our October 2022 public report regarding Hans, including that we found no determinative evidence that he has cheated in any in-person games.’
The 32-year-old world champion gave a frosty response to the settlement, saying: ‘I acknowledge and understand Chess.com’s report, including its statement that there is no determinative evidence that Niemann cheated in his game against me at the Sinquefield Cup.
‘I am willing to play Niemann in future events, should we be paired together.’
As well as being a chess great, Carlsen topped the Premier League’s Fantasy Football standings in 2020 ahead of seven million players.
He said he believes that a combination of studying hordes of data and following his gut instinct helped him top the rankings.
Magnus Carlsen believes a mix of data and his gut instinct allowed him to top Fantasy Football
The Norwegian’s team had, for a brief moment, stood proudly ahead of seven million other online competitors during the Christmas period, making him the best fantasy football player on the planet.
But the chess grandmaster played down his achievement, and insists that simply poring over statistics in the hope of finding undervalued players remains the key to success.
‘Because even if you are good, which I do not claim to be, you also need to be extraordinarily fortunate to be first overall,’ Carlsen told The Guardian.
‘It’s sort of like sports betting. You can give yourself a better chance by looking at the data… but you still need to follow your gut feeling too, and be fortunate.’
