Why would smart people care about denim vs. trousers?
Let competitors wear pajamas- it makes no difference.
Mostly it's about the sponsors. It's much more difficult to get sponsors for an event if the participants are dressed like they slept in their clothes. That's why organizers try to impose minimal standards on dresscodes.
Jeans and sneakers are maybe debatable, but players showed up with cargo pants, shorts or tank tops on other events.
In the FIDE regulation for that event jeans were explicitly mentioned as not allowed. FIDE would have made a fool out of themselves when allowing Magnus to wear the jeans.
Would be interesting if they can get mattress companies or apparel companies that have good comfy clothes as sponsors. Why not play chess on a firm mattress?
FIDE needs to embrace the younger generation that think the game is cool. Ancient dress codes are a distraction.
They happen to be rules that people decided are fun, or interesting, or something. If the dress code isn't fun they should change it.
And for that matter... this tournament is a blitz game, itself a change of rules. Perhaps it would be well suited to a change in dress code. Formal clothes for classic chess. Show up in your PJs for a game that takes as long as brushing your teeth.
Rather for people with a really good memory. Which, to me, makes the game extremely boring and bland.
I'm usually not one to stand on formality but that does feel kinda gross.
Textbook slippery slope fallacy.
Chess is for everyone, my 5 year old plays chess. Being world class is another thing.
More generally, appearances are important because they are clear signs of attention and care. Something worth our respect is worth dressing up for, and a collective dressing up reinforces the importance and elevation of a given event or moment over other events or moments of lesser import.
Chess to me is boring because the better player should win/draw unless they blunder. And we (generally) know who the better player is because of ratings.
I’ve always much preferred games that in the short run have a luck component that can create massive swings (poker, backgammon, Scrabble) and inequality.
Ah yes the wonderful "everything is equally valid" postmodernism. Why don't the organisers subscribe to that? They must be dumb-dumbs.
Take a sport like rowing. Technically there's no reason why all the rowers in a boat needs to be dressed identically, but it looks more professional.
And that attitude led us to these honestly inane events.
Prescriptive contest rules suck, but I don’t like the attitude endemic to nerds that truly smart people don’t care about personal aesthetic. There’s no more honor in not caring how you look than there is in not caring about food or fine art. I have friends that are smart, capable professionals that look like they only get new clothes when their mom notices their shirts exceed the totinos pizza roll stain threshold and drags them to Bob’s— whether it’s at home, work, wedding, date night, court, the gym, the club, a con, etc. You’d expect them to reject people’s tendency to judge people on their looks, but ironically, they deem anyone that puts any effort into their appearance (a.k.a. doesn’t solely dress for comfort) shallow, unintelligent, and boring. Predictably, gender expectations play a huge part.
Attention and care for appearances, not for the job to be done.
One could interpret it that the sharp looks are there as a cover for ... less than stellar competence.
You cannot win with statements like that.
I'd play some Go but I have almost no one to play with casually. And since I play for fun, online isn't so good.
Also, he looked very sharp in his outfit with the jeans. Frankly it was a better ensemble than I’d look in one of my suits.
His outfit is sharp as hell Fwiw
This looks to me like a case where FIDE got greedy and forgot to balance the talents interests with the sponsors.
4.10.1.3. No players with t-shirts, jeans, shorts,
sneakers, baseball caps or inappropriate dress are allowed
in the playing area. Any requests to wear national or
traditional dress shall be approved by FIDE Supervisor.
learn your tactics and end games instead.
Anyone who considers jeans to look like "clothes someone would sleep in" is immediately dubious in my book. Jeans are so extraordinarily uncomfortable to sleep in that I don't think I've ever intentionally done that in my life.
Then IMO you should be on Magnus' side here. He is a truly smart person and IMO he looked clean, groomed, and ready for business in those jeans. He wears a mindfully put together outfit of good quality. This is good character, is it not?
its kinda cruel that you think homeless people who have maybe less than jeans should be given no respect, because they dont have a suit