Chess grandmaster Magnus Carlsen returns to a tournament after a dispute over jeans is resolved

World's top chess player Magnus Carlsen will return to the World Blitz Championship after the event's governing body agreed to relax its dress code. This comes after Carlsen was fined for refusing to change his jeans and subsequently barred from playing in a later round of another event.

Arkady Dvorkovich, president of the International Chess Federation, said in a statement on Sunday that he regretted the dispute. He stated that he would allow World Blitz Championship officials to consider allowing "appropriate jeans" with a jacket, along with other "elegant minor deviations" from the dress code. He added that Carlsen’s stance—which ultimately led to his withdrawal from the competition on Friday—highlighted the need for more discussion “to ensure that our rules and their application reflect the evolution of chess as a global and universal sport.”

Meanwhile, Carlsen said in a video posted on social media on Sunday that he would play in the World Blitz Championship starting on Monday, and he would be wearing jeans. “I think the situation was handled poorly on their side,” said the 34-year-old Norwegian grandmaster. But he added that he loves playing blitz—a fast-paced form of chess—and wants fans to be able to watch, and that his discussions with the federation after Friday’s standoff had been encouraging.

“I think we all want the same thing,” he said in the video on his Take Take Take chess app’s YouTube channel. “We want the players to be comfortable and, of course, also relatively presentable.” The incident stemmed from Carlsen wearing jeans and a sports jacket on Friday at the World Rapid Championship, a separate event from the blitz competition, but held concurrently. The International Chess Federation said on Friday that long-standing rules prohibit jeans at these events, and that it provided players with nearby accommodations for easy clothing changes if needed.

An official fined Carlsen $200 ($321.80) and asked him to change his pants, which he refused, and he was not scheduled to play in the ninth round, the federation said at the time. The organization noted that another grandmaster, Ian Nepomniachtchi, had been fined earlier in the day for wearing sneakers, but he changed his attire and continued to play. Carlsen said he had offered to wear other clothes the next day, but officials were unmoved. He said, “It became a bit of a matter of principle,” so he withdrew from both the rapid and blitz championships.

In the video released on Sunday, he questioned whether he had actually broken the rules and said changing clothes would have unnecessarily interrupted his focus between games. He called the penalty “incredibly harsh.” “Of course, I can change. Obviously, I don’t want to,” he said, “and I stand by that.”