RIP Daniel Naroditsky -- 29 (Chess GM commentator, and educator)

[EndlessCritic]

Seemed like one of the more level headed dudes in a field of some extremely unlikable characters. Very sad.

 

[Fedorgasm]

What happened to him ? Suicide ? RIP

Whenever a young person dies and they don't release the cause of death, I just assume it's auto-erotic asphyxiation. Because otherwise there would be no reason to keep it quiet.

 

[Trabaho]

Whenever a young person dies and they don't release the cause of death, I just assume it's auto-erotic asphyxiation. Because otherwise there would be no reason to keep it quiet.

Identity crisis. Young person. At least he won't have to be 87one day and fall apart. 🕊 rest his soul anyways

 

[KnightTemplar]

RIP. Condolences to his family and friends.

What I know about Chess could be written on a very small envelope and still leave plenty of room for the address. But from what I've read, this kid was GOAT level. And seemed to be a genuinely nice guy as well. He was known to stay after tournaments had finished to chat to fans and sign autographs.

Not even 30, either. Damn shame.

 

[Natural Order]

When you're a super GM you have to treat it like a 9-5 job. They're legitimately studying chess for 8 hours a day. Danya was coaching, commentating and making online content, so he had a lot going on, and he decided to (mostly) step away from competitive chess.

He did compete in the World Blitz Championship in 2024, because it was held in the US, and he did great. Famously he had the match with Ivanchuk where they both looked like they were playing for their lives, and Ivanchuk actually ended up crying at the end of it.

Chess really goes hand in hand with mental instability.....

 

[EndlessCritic]

Whenever a young person dies and they don't release the cause of death, I just assume it's auto-erotic asphyxiation. Because otherwise there would be no reason to keep it quiet.

people aren't usually enthusiastic about announcing any type of suicide or even drug overdose.

 

[KnightTemplar]

Chess really goes hand in hand with mental instability.....

The infamous Occultist Alister Crowley played Chess as a young man, and seriously considered making a career of it. He eventually decided against turning pro because he noticed that most of the Grandmasters were suffering from some kind of mental health issue.

Crowley styled himself, "The Great Beast", carried out sex magic rituals - basically gang bangs meant to invoke demons - and was indirectly linked to more than one death. And even he thought Chess at the highest level was too freaky!

 

[AFanNotAFighter]

I've never heard of this man but I'm going to check out his tutorials. I taught myself to play chess about 25 years ago via books, online sites and the Chessmaster video series. I quit playing a couple years after I started because it was literally taking over my life. I was staying up until 2 AM playing games even though I had to get up at 6 AM to go to work.

 

[Zer]

sex magic rituals - basically gang bangs meant to invoke demons

I'll never look at this guy the same again

 

[Madmick]

Yeah this was pretty shocking. I've watched hours and hours of his videos. He was REALLY an outstanding teacher and helped me a lot. More importantly, he really seemed like a genuinely nice person. Wasn't even 30 yet. 30th birthday was in a few days.

People were commenting that he appeared to be having a mental health episode the other day, and he had gone a while without uploading videos to YouTube I think (he did post something 2 days ago). People said he was mentioning Kramnik on his stream, who has basically been bullying Naroditsky for a while. Kramnik even wrote this after news of Danya's death:



Apparently, Bortnyk actually went to check on Danya and was the one who found him.

After seeing Russian chess players like Kramnik and Karjakin turn feel heel since the invasion of Ukraine, at least we have had the pleasure of witnessing the bloated Russian national ego trampled as the Indians have risen to become the greatest chess nation on earth with their only meaningful competition being the Americans. There's been a lot of coping.


If we can just get Dubov, the most electric player in the world, to defect...all will be right in the world.

 

[HOLA]

After seeing Russian chess players like Kramnik and Karjakin turn feel heel since the invasion of Ukraine, at least we have had the pleasure of witnessing the bloated Russian national ego trampled as the Indians have risen to become the greatest chess nation on earth with their only meaningful competition being the Americans. There's been a lot of coping.


If we can just get Dubov, the most electric player in the world, to defect...all will be right in the world.

Dubov is one of my favorites too. He was also one of a group of top-level Russian chess players who signed an open letter protesting the Russian invasion of Ukraine, so I don't think he's too aligned with Putin's Russia right now.

 

[Madmick]

Dubov is one of my favorites too. He was also one of a group of top-level Russian chess players who signed an open letter protesting the Russian invasion of Ukraine, so I don't think he's too aligned with Putin's Russia right now.

Fire on and off the board. Straight fire.

 

[MetalMilitia]

Today's TT was a pretty sick one --

Lotta shout outs, lotta love shown from commentators + players...

Finished Parham 1st with Hikaru 2nd heh -- I think they said Daniel had won 2-3 of em over the existence.... shit is super-spicy now for those that have never seen it. Anyways, Hikaru also DIRECTLY implied that the situation with Daniel + Kramnik needs to be addressed -- he hasn't held back his thoughts on the shit one bit.

Titled Tuesday

Hikaru Nakamura, Fabiano Caruana, Alexandra Kosteniuk and other top grandmasters star in Titled Tuesday, the strongest weekly blitz tournament in online chess.

www.chess.com

5+0 blitz -- leads to so many great positions arriving, middle game scrambling, and endgame madness. They are on the 8th week of 5+0 and it's about 1 to 1 1/2 hours or so of non-stop. Not ONE game... but for all 11 rounds

So for those with short attention span, it ain't slow/classical -- give it a shot, you might fall in love with the format.

 

[mozfonky]

people aren't usually enthusiastic about announcing any type of suicide or even drug overdose.

yup, that's what i was gonna say. suicide is probably way more common than beating off with a tourniquet around your neck.

 

[mozfonky]

The infamous Occultist Alister Crowley played Chess as a young man, and seriously considered making a career of it. He eventually decided against turning pro because he noticed that most of the Grandmasters were suffering from some kind of mental health issue.

Crowley styled himself, "The Great Beast", carried out sex magic rituals - basically gang bangs meant to invoke demons - and was indirectly linked to more than one death. And even he thought Chess at the highest level was too freaky!

hmm, wonder what's so freaky about chess. All i know about is how bobby fischer was insane as fuck, ranting about jews when he was jewish was nutty to hear.

 

[Dobymick]

I heard that he had an opioid addiction and it was an OD.

You can watch his very last stream on youtube and it's quite shocking at how he was. He kept falling sleep for a few seconds and then waking up again. Typical of opioids and extreme sleep depravation

He looked horrible and his voice was of a broken man. At some point a friend who was watching his stream went to his house to ask him to stop playing and go to sleep and Danya argued with him asking just for a few more games. It's really sad l but it looks like a suicide. The man was shattered

 

[BluntForceTrama]

Probably won't get much attention around the sherdogs, but damn -- I've watched so much chess content and learned so much -- and his speed-runs were a crazy feat he could pull off endlessly....

One of the best bullet players in the world (talkin' top 150 in all formats) but a fucking MONSTER -- especially ridiculous shit like 1+0 bullet format

Bonkers.... I mean he just did a speedrun vid a few days ago -- he looked a little "off" -- so one can sit and speculate -- Him and Hikaru along with agadmator and gotham is like a daily chess fix for me.

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GM Daniel Naroditsky, a former World Junior Champion and longtime member of the Charlotte Chess Center community, has died, the center said on Monday. He was 29.

“Daniel was a talented chess player, commentator, and educator, and a cherished member of the chess community, admired and respected by fans and players around the world,” the center said in a statement attributed to the Naroditsky family.

The center asked for “privacy for Daniel’s family during this extremely difficult time.”

“Let us remember Daniel for his passion and love for the game of chess, and for the joy and inspiration he brought to us all every day.”

Naroditsky played in five U.S. Championships and published a book, Mastering Positional Chess, at age 14. He won the gold medal in the Under-12 Open section of the 2007 FIDE World Youth Championships, and he won the 2013 U.S. Junior (Under-20) Championship at age 17. He was also a Chess Life columnist from 2014 until 2020.

Naroditsky was also known to many in the U.S. and around the world as an active chess streamer and teacher, something which GM Hikaru Nakamura brought up in a Kick stream Monday afternoon, placing him in the first generation of prodigious chess streamers — such as himself, IM Levy Rozman, and the Botez sisters — who changed the perception of the game.

“He loved streaming, and he loved trying to be educational,” Nakamura said. “The chess world is very grateful” for him, he added, calling Naroditsky “just someone who tried to do what he could for chess.”

“I am a bit of a mess obviously,” he added.

GM Oleksandr Bortnyk also addressed the news on Twitch Monday. “He was a very talented chess player,” Bortnyk said. “But more, he was a very good guy. Very kind guy. He was a good friend.”

https://new.uschess.org/news/gm-daniel-naroditsky-1995-2025

Always have the utmost respect for the chess nuts

 

[mozfonky]

I heard that he had an opioid addiction and it was an OD.

You can watch his very last stream on youtube and it's quite shocking at how he was. He kept falling sleep for a few seconds and then waking up again. Typical of opioids and extreme sleep depravation

He looked horrible and his voice was of a broken man. At some point a friend who was watching his stream went to his house to ask him to stop playing and go to sleep and Danya argued with him asking just for a few more games. It's really sad l but it looks like a suicide. The man was shattered

I'm not in the know, why would he be shattered? Was he being abused? Or just addiction itself?

 

[mozfonky]

Seemed like one of the more level headed dudes in a field of some extremely unlikable characters. Very sad.

kinda like computer people, no people skills whatsoever.

 

[HOLA]

"I never got to meet Naroditsky in person. He hardly played much classical chess and hardly travelled outside the US, and I’ve never been to the US. But I knew him pretty well.

We played a lot of games, and he was a great guy. He was a very positive guy, and one of the smartest. You could just feel it from the way he spoke. It was heartbreaking to hear the news.

Naroditsky’s last games on chess.com were against me. That day, we had played a bit in the morning, and the last games were at night. We were also talking about a few things. He said he was under immense stress due to a lot of accusations, from Kramnik. But apparently quite a few others seemed to have joined in. I can imagine the pain he was going through for a very long time and the toll on his mental health, but didn’t think he would get affected so easily.

When I was accused by Kramnik, a lot of people close to me immediately defended me. It was easier for me because I was playing much more over the board. I feel sad that not as many people could be so vocal in supporting Naroditsky. I was hardly affected by the accusations against me. I was aware that I had had some good results, and was kind of waiting for it. I knew Kramnik would come after me someday.

He’s (Kramnik) a great player, a world champion, a very influential one. He gave a lot to chess. He’s one of the greatest players of all time. But these days, he has destroyed his own reputation and now he’s causing much more harm. He has literally taken a life and now he’s after Navara, the nicest guy in chess.

I’ve played Navara a few times and interacted with him. For a long time, Navara has had some psychological issues and he has even mentioned that these accusations made him feel suicidal. He wrote to FIDE asking for some sanctions against Kramnik but nothing happened. Kramnik is now filing a lawsuit against him.

Why would somebody like Naroditsky cheat? That’s a question that guys like Kramnik can conveniently ignore. I don’t understand what one gets from this?

Cheating in chess is a huge problem but Kramnik is just blurting out accusations basically every day. I don’t know if he realises the impact it can have on innocent people. Kramnik’s method is like burning down a city to catch some cheaters. If you accuse everyone in the world, you will be right about someone; it’s not rocket science at all.

In our last conversation, Naroditsky said he would like to share a few things with me in private. Later that day, I wrote him some supportive messages. I asked him to feel free to contact me, and now I get this news. I was worried that something bad would happen. I’m still in shock.

I definitely hope that something good comes out of this for others who are suffering. I’m especially concerned for Navara. Kramnik really needs to pay for what he’s doing to others.

Danya (Naroditsky) always spoke very highly of me. He supported me a lot, and it’s really sad what has happened. We played a total of some 2,100 or 2,200 games on chess.com alone.

Our last few games felt very abnormal. Almost every game, at some point in a short three-minute game, it felt like he was having huge pauses for no reason. It was like he was just freezing, and I felt something was off. In the last game, I actually offered him a draw, but he spent a lot of time and just played.

I was worried about Naroditsky after his last few games… and then I did not see him online again. Generally, the guy used to be online 24/7. And the day after, I heard the news of his passing.

Kramnik is one big voice, but there are others supporting him. I just hope that others don’t suffer like this."

- Nihal Sarin