Daniel Naroditsky’s death: Magnus Carlsen pays heartwarming tribute to American GM, says ‘he would often checkmate me’

Daniel Naroditsky’s sudden death (19 October) at the age of 29 has totally shaken the chess fraternity. The American GM was less than a month short of his 30th birthday. Naroditsky’s death has led many chess fans and players to criticise Vladimir Kramnik for his unsubstantiated cheating accusations thrown at the American GM. World No. 1 Magnus Carlsen had spoken about Kramnik’s cheating accusations at Naroditsky last week, and now he revealed what made him special as a chess player.

Speaking to ChessBase India, he said, “What was really interesting for me about playing Naroditsky was that he had a style that’s very different from mine. So I generally do well in faster formats unless I somehow get mated. I can play very good positional moves quickly. And that’s what was interesting about him was that he was able to drum up attacks out of nothing. And he would quite often actually checkmate me. Like that’s often how he won games (against me).”

“And so for me that clash of style was was was extremely interesting,” he added.

According to reports, Naroditsky was found unconscious at his residence in North Carolina’s Mecklenburg County before being pronounced dead. Charlotte Chess Center’s founder Peter Giannatos and GM Oleksandr Bortnyk found him lying unconscious on a couch at his residence.

The exact reason of his death has not been revealed yet. But in his last stream on October 17, he looked distressed and also addressed the Kramnik accusations. Kramnik accused him of cheating in online chess, which started in October 2024 and went on for over a year. Naroditsky rejected Kramnik’s allegations, defended himself and also revealed that it took a tremendous toll on his mental health.

Last week, when Carlsen spoke about Kramnik’s accusations, he said, “With the whole Kramnik situation not only with Naroditsky, from the beginning I would say. Obviously I have had problems with him in the past, not like big problems but generally, for all his greatness, generally, he thought that he was somebody who had a bit of a better reputation than that he deserved for many reasons. But I did feel from the very start that he when he was going through some kind of ‘crusade’ against cheating online, I did feel that, at the start, I didn’t agree with his numbers. I thought at the end of the day he is kind of fighting the good fight.”