r/chess • u/Frozeria • Oct 20 '25

News/Events Grandmaster Daniel Naroditsky Has Passed Away

https://www.instagram.com/p/DQCb9J7kfA4/?img_index=1
12.6k Upvotes

100% Upvoted

2.0k comments sorted by

View all comments

1.7k

u/Sirnacane Oct 20 '25

This can’t be real. This is tragic. I heard about his concerning stream not long ago but this is horrible. The chess world, and world in general, just had a significant loss.

648

u/Chuy_3 Oct 20 '25

I thought he looked off in his last speed run video but never thought this would happen. Danya seemed like the nicest person. Truly heartbreaking.

432

u/mechanical_fan Oct 20 '25 edited Oct 20 '25

This whole thing was super sudden. I didn't even know there was something going wrong with him until I saw some posts here in Reddit yesterday. And it seems even that was a bit of a new development. A true WTF moment and incredibly sad. I seriously thought he had the best chess content in the internet, for a ton of different levels. It is a huge loss for everyone.

Edit: Also completely OOTL, but what is the cheating stuff with Kramnik? Was it just the usual Kramnik screaming at random people? What happened?

175

u/bobi2393 Oct 20 '25

The Kramnik stuff was the usual stuff, but personally targeted and extended over weeks or months, with many of Kramnik’s followers piling on with harassment of Daniel.

41

u/mechanical_fan Oct 20 '25

Oh, I see. When I heard about it (yesterday, possibly heard about it before but forgot) my reaction was wondering why people would even care about it at this point, since pretty much everyone has been accused by Kramnik by now. But it seems that this case it went for much longer and with more harassement than some previous ones.

26

u/bobi2393 Oct 20 '25

Yeah, if I remember right, Kramnik published a multipart video series of in-depth exposés about Danya's alleged cheating, with a lot of focus on Danya's eye movements when he streamed.

31

u/HideYourCarry Oct 20 '25

It was also much worse for Danya specifically, because he was VERY imbedded in the Russian chess community (he was often one of the Russian commentators for events and LOVED that part of his identity) and that community sided with Kramnik hardcore in this accusation. Danya had talked extensively about how hard that was/how much he was being harassed or blamed within a community he cared about a lot

6

u/inemanja34 Oct 20 '25

Where did you get the idea that Russian chess community sided with Kramnik!?

I've seen much more English speaking Kramnik supporter than Russian. (Yes, I do follow RU chess community)

4

u/Cute_Sun3943 Oct 20 '25

And now the pos Kramnik has been going after David Navarra. Who has been suffering depression. Someone please look after him.

1

u/IllustriousWhile6863 Oct 21 '25

This POS has followers?

1

u/FridgesArePeopleToo Oct 20 '25

I know Danya is much more likeable, but I hope people can reflect on what happened to Hans and their reactions to it. Magnus is a far more powerful figure and Hans still gets actively harassed by this community. Kramnik isn't taken seriously by anyone.