Carlsen will rejoin the chess championship after the dispute over the cowboys is resolved

World number one chess player Magnus Carlsen has said he will return to a major chess competition after the sport’s governing body agreed to relax its dress code.

Carlsen left the World Rapid and Blitz Chess Championship in New York on Friday, where he was defending his title, when he was told he could no longer play in jeans.

The International Chess Federation (Fide) later said it would relax its dress code to allow “minor and elegant deviations” from its official list of acceptable dress.

The 34-year-old has since said he will return to the contest on Monday and will continue to wear jeans when he plays.

Carlsen, a five-time chess champion, was fined $200 last week for violating the tournament’s dress code.

He said he had been wearing jeans to a lunch and “didn’t even think” about exchanging them for a different pair of pants on his way to the tournament.

He had already played a few rounds wearing a shirt, jacket and jeans when he was told he had violated dress code rules.

The grandmaster said that he had offered to change his pants for the next day, but was told that he needed to change immediately, which he refused.

Carlsen then withdrew from the competition and said he would leave the city.

“No one wants to turn back… I’ll probably go somewhere where the weather is a little better than here,” he said.

Announcing the changes to its dress code on Sunday, Fide president Arkadi Dvorkovitch said: “The principle is simple: it is still necessary to follow the official dress code, but small elegant deviations (which may include, in particular , appropriate jeans that match the jacket) are allowed.”

He said tournament staff will need to help judge whether teams conform to the relaxed code, adding that he hoped players would not “undermine the festive atmosphere” at the tournament on New Year’s Eve by “abusing this additional flexibility.” .

In a social media post on Sunday, Carlsen said: “Oh, I’ll definitely play in jeans tomorrow.”

Fide had previously said its dress code rules were designed to “ensure fairness and professionalism for all participants.”

Carlsen is a prominent chess figure who has generated some controversy in recent years.

The Norwegian became Grandmaster (the highest title in chess) at the age of 13 and has long been considered a maverick in the chess world.

In 2023, he settled a long-running legal dispute after accusing an American rival of cheating.

Carlsen had made the accusation after being unexpectedly defeated by 19-year-old chess prodigy Hans Niemann in a 2022 match.

Niemann denied the allegations and filed a $100 million defamation lawsuit against Carlsen, the Chess.com website and another American grandmaster.

Last August, Chess.com said the lawsuit had been settled out of courtand that Carlsen now accepted that Niemann had not cheated.