Carlsen will rejoin the chess tournament after the jeans dispute is resolved

The world’s best chess player, Magnus Carlsen, has said he will return to a major chess tournament after the sport’s governing body agreed to relax the dress code.

Carlsen left the World Rapid and Blitz Chess Championships in New York on Friday, where he was defending his title, when he was told he could not continue playing in jeans.

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

The 34-year-old said he will return to the tournament on Monday and will continue to wear jeans when playing.

Carlsen, a five-time chess champion, was fined $200 (£159) last week for breaching the tournament’s dress code.

He said he was wearing jeans when he was at the lunch meeting, and “didn’t even think about” changing them to a different pair of pants when he went to the tournament.

He had already played a few rounds in a shirt, blazer, and jeans when he was told he had broken the dress code.

My grandfather said that he was determined to change his pants the next day, but he was told that he had to change immediately, and he refused.

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

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

Announcing the changes to the dress code on Sunday, Fide president Arkadi Dvorkovitch said: “The principle is simple: you still need to follow the official dress code, but small positive deviations (which may, in particular, include suitable jeans like a jacket) are allowed.”

He said tournament staff would be required to help judge whether clothing complies with the relaxed code, and added that he hoped players would not “undermine the excitement” of the tournament in the New Year by “misusing this extra flexibility”.

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

Earlier, Fide said the dress code rules were designed to “ensure fairness and professionalism for all participants”.

Carlsen is a top chess player who has drawn controversy in recent years.

This Norwegian player became a 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 made the charge after he was suddenly beaten by 19-year-old chess player Hans Niemann in a 2022 match.

Niemann denied the allegations and filed a $100m (£79m) defamation suit against Carlsen, the Chess.com website and another US grandmaster.

Last August, said Chess.com the case has been settled out of courtand that Carlsen now accepts that Niemann did not cheat.