Compared with other games, chess is rather staid. But even chess has some drama. The latest scandal in the chess world has to do with the International Chess Federation (FIDE) dress code.
Magnus Carlsen, a renowned thirty-four-year-old chess player, was seen wearing blue jeans at the 2024 World Rapid Chess Championship/World Blitz Championship in New York. He walked out, uttering profanities about FIDE’s dress code, which requires proper trousers. Given his celebrity status, however, it hardly came as a surprise when FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich gave way to Carlsen by declaring that they would now accommodate “elegant minor deviations” to rules of attire.
Had the event been held in San Francisco, the entire controversy could have been averted. Because here, you see, we play in the nude.
Well, not all the time.
Our city’s preeminent chess venue is located on the fourth floor of the Mechanics’ Institute, where the standard fashion is maintained. This is the oldest continuously operating chess club in the United States, offering a variety of activities for players of all abilities, including tournaments, lectures, lessons, and casual play. It also provides free chess classes to hundreds of San Francisco public school students each week.
The men in our particular clique represent a splinter group, with matches staged in secret locales determined on a random basis by various committee chairs.
When we arrive at the venue, many of us are incognito. We dress in suits and ties. Shoes with a hard polish and waxed laces are required.
Neckwear usually consists of four-in-hand knotted ties, but we do occasionally stage an “ascot-optional” night. Velour smoking jackets and velvet slippers are also permitted when they match the overall formal aesthetic. Pairs of pince-nez are not unknown, but monocles are seldom sported. Cigarette holders and pipes abound.
Young Indian men show up resplendent in their native garb. Turbans are allowed, but daggers must be checked at the door. The Chinese tuck opium pipes behind their silk paisley pocket handkerchiefs. The Irish with their flasks are conspicuous but are discreet when it comes to pouring a short measure into monogrammed glassware.
Cell phones are strictly forbidden, and bathroom breaks closely monitored (to discourage cheating).
Our “chess in the raw” nights were inspired by Marcel Duchamp, who famously posed for a photo with the writer Eve Babitz, all captured by TIME magazine photographer Julian Wasser in the early 1960s. Babitz was nude, Duchamp was not. But in our iteration, everyone removes their clothes.
Perhaps this custom will soon be embraced by chess-playing Norwegians, as theirs is one “Sauna culture,” of several.
Will Magnus Carlsen — Norway’s national hero — soon become the poster boy for this Chess Undressed trend?
Only if he sheds his jeans and other fashion-forward affectations.
And it would be wise at the same time, Mr. Carlsen, to lose the arrogant Nordic attitude.
You are only as good as your last gambit, after all.
