The death of Daniel Naroditsky has left the chess fraternity in shock, and the reactions are coming in thick and fast. The New York Times columnist and educator, who was once hailed as a chess prodigy at the age of 18 after becoming a grandmaster, passed away on Sunday. The development was confirmed by Charlotte Chess Centre, a chess academy in Charlotte, North Carolina, where Naroditsky served as a head coach. However, no cause of death was mentioned.
On social media, there is an ongoing discourse that the American grandmaster was under great stress after allegations of cheating were levelled against him by former world champion Vladimir Kramnik.
Indian grandmaster Nihal Sarin, who was the last player to face Naroditsky on the online chess.com forum, blamed Kramnik for creating pressure on the American by constantly levelling allegations of cheating, which Naroditsky had denied.
“He (Kramnik) has kind of literally taken a life. His last games were against me. That day, we played a bit in the morning and then there were our last games at night. We were also talking about a few things. He said he was under immense stress due to a lot of baseless accusations — headed by Kramnik, of course,” Sarin told Indian Express.
“Apparently, unfortunately, quite a few others also seem to have joined in… I can totally imagine the pain he was going through, and it has been going on for a very long time. I had thought he’s a very strong guy. I didn’t think he would get affected so easily,” he added.
The 21-year-old also minced no words as he asked for sanctions to be imposed on Kramnik, considering he continues to go on by accusing several others of cheating.
“Why would somebody like Naroditsky cheat? And that is a question that guys like Kramnik can just very conveniently ignore… I cannot process how messed up some of these minds are. I don’t understand what you get from this? What do you get from ruining anyone’s life? Now, (Kramnik is) almost directly responsible for taking one.”
“He’s after Czech grandmaster David Navara… Navara is struggling… I am most worried about him right now. I don’t know how to say this, but I sincerely hope that Kramnik gets some big sanctions. I don’t know how, but he really needs to pay for what he’s doing to others. Navara is the nicest guy in chess… since a long time, he has been having 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 and nothing happened,” he added.
Kramnik is causing harm
Sarin did acknowledge Kramnik’s contribution to the sport, but he noted that the Russian is now causing significant harm by raising allegations of cheating against several players.
“He’s a great player, a world champion… He gave a lot to chess. He’s one of the greatest players of all time, without any doubt. But these days, the harm he’s causing…,” he said.
“Cheating in chess is a huge problem. But what Kramnik does is completely unacceptable. He 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. Kramnik’s methods, it seems like, you burn down a city to catch some cheaters, basically. You kill some thousand other completely innocent guys to get one or two guys,” he added.
Speaking of Naroditsky, he won grade-level national championships twice. He then became the youngest player ever to claim the California K-12 Championship.
In 2007, he was showered with international acclaim after winning the under-12 World Youth Chess Championship. He also had a huge fan following on YouTube and Twitch.
