The truth about Jeansgate
A persuasive case can be made that Magnus Carlsen is the greatest chess player of all time. The 34-year-old Norwegian is no longer world champion – bored with classical (ie long-form) chess, he chose not to defend his title in 2023 – but currently his name resonates more than ever before. This is not because of his expertise in the Ruy Lopez or Sicilian Defence, but because chess’s governing body, Fide, recently barred him from playing in a tournament because he was wearing jeans. “Jeansgate” demonstrates that while the media and wider public may have little time for the niceties of chess openings, they have a great deal of time for the nuttiness of the chess world.
Chess and fashion are not words often juxtaposed, though the great Cuban world champion of the 1920s, José Raúl Capablanca, was a splendidly natty dresser who would never have been seen dead in a pair of jeans, and American world champion Bobby Fischer in his 1960s and early 70s pomp sported bespoke suits, shirts and shoes. Thirty years later the increasingly unhinged Fischer was shambling round Budapest looking lost and destitute – an image which is sadly more often associated with chess players, a frequently marginalised community, than the bespoke-era Fischer.
It is because some professional chess players have in the past tended to dress shabbily that Fide introduced rules governing what they could wear during tournaments. Ironically, Fide’s general rules permit jeans (at least neat ones like the pair Carlsen was wearing), but for the World Rapid & Blitz Championships, played in late December at glitzy venues on New York’s Wall Street, the regulations were tightened up to forbid them. At the heart of corporate America, the mantra was “dress to impress”. Fine, but Carlsen always dresses well; just not in Capablanca-style three-piece suits. His jeans were tailored and expensive. He has been an ambassador for clothing brand G-Star Raw, which quickly renewed his contract after the New York debacle. Every cloud has a silver lining – for Carlsen at least.
The episode has left Fide looking absurd. A code designed to outlaw “beachwear, torn pants, denim shorts and sunglasses” managed to ban a fashion model. In fact, it was worse than that. When he was barred from playing in round 9, Carlsen quit the rapidplay – he was doing badly by his standards anyway and had nothing much to lose – but an embarrassed Fide then relaxed the jeans rule and he returned for the subsequent blitz tournament (rapidplay is quick chess, blitz even faster), which he promptly won. Or rather he shared first prize with the Russian Ian Nepomniachtchi because, after a succession of draws, the two said they preferred not to play on and were allowed instead to be joint winners, ignoring the tie-break rules and in effect sidelining Fide. Carlsen 2, Fide 0.
There is a strong argument for seeing Jeansgate as part of a wider battle over who controls the sport – Fide or the players? Carlsen is challenging Fide by championing a new series of “freestyle” chess tournaments, where the opening positions of pieces are randomised. Freestyle chess is derived from Fischer Random, a variant introduced by Carlsen’s illustrious predecessor in 1996. Thus does history repeat itself: both champions voluntarily relinquished their crowns and became bigger than the game they graced. This is not a battle about fashion but about power, and so far Carlsen is winning.
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