Earlier this week, American Chess Grandmaster Daniel Naroditsky passed away at the age of 29.

While the death of anyone at such a young age is sad, what’s even sadder are the circumstances that drove his death.

As of this writing, there’s been no official cause of death but everyone is talking about it as if it was suicide.

Danya

Daniel (who went by “Danya”), was an American chess prodigy who was awarded the Grandmaster title at the age of 18.  He was prominent on YouTube (~500K followers) and noted for his excellent, erudite chess coverage and commentary.  I used the word “erudite” because it’s the kind of word Danya would have used because he was noted for his expansive vocabulary.

It’s hard to find anything – in fact, impossible to find anything – negative about him online.  Everyone who interacted with him says he was a warm, genuine human being.

Kramnik

In 2024, Naroditsky came under fire from Vladimir Kramnik, a Russian Grandmaster and former World Champion, who accused Danya of cheating.  Kramnik has accused a lot of people of cheating, and generally without much evidence.  Often without any evidence.

While cheating does occur in chess, there is no evidence that Naroditsky cheated.  Indeed, many of his friends and fellow chess luminaries defended Naroditsky and the various platforms on which Danya played did not ban him or take any adverse action.

You’d think that the story would end there – one chess master accuses another of cheating, no one believes him, and that’s how it peters out.

But in this case, Naroditsky had a life-long relationship with Kramnik prior to 2024, even viewing him as a mentor.  Kramnik was unrelenting in his accusations, both publicly and privately.  And it’s not just another chess master – this is a former World Champion.  His voice carries a lot of weight in the chess world.

Viewing Kramnik’s X account shows the amazing depth Kramnik went to in order to hammer Naroditsky constantly about cheating.

Danya please dont make us ashamed of you, find better excuses, try harder pic.twitter.com/P9d57AY7W4

— Vladimir Kramnik (@VBkramnik) October 21, 2024

It was just relentless, and it began to wear on Naroditsky.

You Never Know

I’ve known people you could viciously insult who’d just shrug and genuinely wouldn’t care.  I’ve known others who would melt at minor slights.

It’s easy to say that people should have thicker skin online, but when it’s someone who (a) you’ve known your whole life, (b) was a mentor to you, and (c) is a titan in the community that is both your livelihood and your passion, it’s very hard to ignore.

Condemnation

Comments about Kramnik’s role in Naroditsky’s death have come fast and furious:

“Kramnik operates in his own fake reality where he is the voice of righteousness and leverages that with his followers for profit.  He doesn’t care about the truth or who he hurts along the way.” — GM Zhou

“”I thought the way he was going after Naroditsky was horrible.” — former World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen

“I’ll say it before and I’ll say it again, Kramnik can go f*** himself. He can go f*** himself and can go rot in hell.” — American GM Hikaru Nakamura

“Daniel’s smile faded after the attacks began. We all saw it. The chess world has lost one of its brightest lights – someone who made our game accessible to millions….He (Naroditsky) said he was under immense stress due to a lot of baseless accusations — headed by Kramnik, of course…He (Kramnik) just blurts out accusations every day… He was a world champion, a very influential figure after all. And I don’t know if he realises the impact it can have on innocent people.” — ” GM Nihal Sarin

What’s Next?

I have a feeling that Kramnik will find it difficult to find opponents in the years ahead.  If prominent GMs refuse to play him, he may find himself in a lonely corner of the chess universe.  FIDE has talked about taking some sort of action, but I think the real impact to Kramnik will be stigmatization by his peers.

raindog308

Raindog308 is a longtime LowEndTalk community administrator, technical writer, and self-described techno polymath. With deep roots in the *nix world, he has a passion for systems both modern and vintage, ranging from Unix, Perl, Python, and Golang to shell scripting and mainframe-era operating systems like MVS. He’s equally comfortable with relational database systems, having spent years working with Oracle, PostgreSQL, and MySQL.

As an avid user of LowEndBox providers, Raindog runs an empire of LEBs, from tiny boxes for VPNs, to mid-sized instances for application hosting, and heavyweight servers for data storage and complex databases. He brings both technical rigor and real-world experience to every piece he writes.

Beyond the command line, Raindog is a lover of German Shepherds, high-quality knives, target shooting, theology, tabletop RPGs, and hiking in deep, quiet forests.

His goal with every article is to help users, from beginners to seasoned sysadmins, get more value, performance, and enjoyment out of their infrastructure.

You can find him daily in the forums at LowEndTalk under the handle @raindog308.