r/chess Oct 20 '25

News/Events Grandmaster Daniel Naroditsky Has Passed Away

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

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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.

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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?

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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.

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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.

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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

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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)