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Re:Chess grandmaster Magnus Carlsen rejoins tournament he qu... by yodsanklai on Monday December 30, 2024 @11:42AM (#42550900)
Uniforms in sports have often to do with tradition (on top of the aspects you mentioned). Look at Golf, Tennis or Judo/BJJ dress codes for instance. Most sports have a dress code and if you look into the details, there are often arbitrary elements.

Many other social activities which you may not call sport have dress codes too. On the top of my head, I can think of Bridge or Snooker. Nothing really fundamentally peculiar with Chess. I don't blame Carlsen for asking to review the rules though.

Re:Chess grandmaster Magnus Carlsen rejoins tournament he qu... by EA-3167 on Monday December 30, 2024 @05:16PM (#42554142)
Just to make a point here, Judo/BJJ stand out because their "dress codes" are actually part of how the sport works in practice. A lot of throws and holds involve the gi, so standardizing what's worn (which has been done in the case of Judo for a very long time) isn't just aesthetic or traditional. I don't believe that in the case of, for example golf, the dress code is functional.
Re:Chess grandmaster Magnus Carlsen rejoins tournament he qu... by yodsanklai on Tuesday December 31, 2024 @01:01AM (#42556777)
I was specifically referring to the color. You can't show up with a green gi. Actually, it was controversial when blue gis were introduced in the late 90s. In Judo, it's currently only white or blue.
Re:Chess grandmaster Magnus Carlsen rejoins tournament he qu... by freehorse on Monday December 30, 2024 @05:58PM (#42554518)
But different chess tournaments have different dress codes. Maybe FIDE has a most strict one but I don’t see how this is a universal chess tradition.

Moreover, in the examples you give clothes also serve a practical use within the game itself, except maybe golf not as significantly. But golf is also another peculiar case of a sport and one that carries different traditions. Eg esp for BJJ I would say clothes are important part of the game in ways that it is not for chess.

I agree that FIDE’s dress code is prob more similar to dress code of social activities like bridge. But I would also expect some people to get confused over how strict these are from time to time, and ppl certainly do not become grandmasters by memorising dress code rules. This has happened before anyway and ppl did not think it was an intentional act of activism to dress in shorts either [0].

[0] https://www.chess.com/news/view/dress-code-incident-at-world...