The International Chess Federation fined a 23-year-old chess player from the Netherlands at its World Rapid and Blitz Championships in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, for wearing "sports shoes.”
FIDE, as the federation is known, fined Anna-Maja Kazarian €100 ($111) for wearing what the organization’s arbiters deemed "sports shoes” during the tournament this week. It also required Kazarian, who streams her games to more than 34,000 followers on Twitch, to change into more formal shoes between games.
Failing to change into other shoes, which she needed to retrieve from her hotel room across the river from the tournament’s venue, would "result in not being invited in the pairings for the next round,” according to the official warning, which she received on a yellow laminated card.