I have no sympathy for a professional player who can't be bothered, or thinks it's beneath them, to read the rules of the tournaments they're participating in. It is literally your job. I'm guessing these guys are sponsored, get income from speaking appearances, tutoring, and so on. If you're getting paid for what you do, you have no right to complain about having to read tournament rules. At the same time, it behooves tournament organizers to standardize on rules, or at least summarize how their rules differ from some standard.

It makes me wonder if he's been enabled by tournament organizers being lax about enforcement of the rules for top players, when it should be the opposite - those with the most experience should be held to the highest standards because they should know better.

Women athletes who are forced to wear what amounts to underwear when the men aren't - they have a valid complaint about uniform standards. This sounds like a bunch of whiny silver-spooned brats.

Magnus Carlsen is extremely wealthy due to part ownership in large chess sites. He does not need income from these tournaments.

Everyone is saying it's literally their job to know the rules, but for players like Hikaru and Magnus, this is not their job in any meaningful sense, it's a hobby.

Also, Magnus isn't lookirg for sympathy, he's just saying why he can't be bothered complying with these regulations, there's not that much in it for him.

> It is literally your job.

It's not his occupation in some ways. He makes a lot more money from every other venture, so there is not a major economic incentive for him. Likewise, he works with creators and platforms that pull in big numbers of engaged viewers.

> Women athletes who are forced to wear what amounts to underwear when the men aren't - they have a valid complaint about uniform standards.

For what it's worth that was the same organization - FIDE - that has made those terrible choices in the past as well.

hikaru's comment is that fide run stuff is not at all how chess players make money, if they make money.

for the most part theyre paying a lot for non-playimg middlemen to be in the way

> Women athletes who are forced to wear what amounts to underwear when the men aren't

What

I would find that a bit surprising. Do you happen to remember where you heard him say this?

Sounds plausible enough to me.

I don’t read the license agreement of every bit of software or the privacy policy of every website, after all.

I think this is more akin to reading the rules of a formal assembly before participating (eg.: a senate or a formal committee). These guys do chess events for a living. :shrug:

I’ve competed in many running races, and I’m not sure if they even have written rules. Presumably they do, but I’ve never read them. You don’t need to, everyone knows what a race is.

Likewise, I use GPL software daily, for a living - doesn’t mean I’ve ever read the license.

It depends on the race, sometimes there are rules that might surprise you. One that I recently signed up for has pretty specific gear requirements for 10k/21k/42k/60k. Trail races can have strict rules as well, like the type of compass and nutrients you need.

Exactly. They play chess for a living.

You need to care about the bits around the actual chess playing, but regulations for these things are overwhelmingly made of "play nice, be reasonable, don't be a dick" rules. If you try to play by those high-level rules, apologise if you break the nitty gritty of the low-level rules and fix things at the earliest opportunity, it shouldn't be a big issue. Also, things like dress code can easily be a "not an actual rule, just convention" sort of affair.

It’s very common for sports professionals not to have memorised the rules for every aspect of their sport.

They’re professionals because they understand the game and are in the top 1% of people who play it. Not because they are the best at memorising rules. The latter group are people Who become umpires/referees instead.

One can be a professional champion and referee and professional referee, all at the same time, just not in the same game event.

Sure, but I feel you’re missing the point with that comment.

I get paid to attend conferences for my job, I rarely read the detailed rules of the conference and venue. I assume they all say common sense stuff and are mostly the same. It's no different for chess players

I remember Hikaru saying such things too, on livestreams (twitch or kick). More than once.