GM Naroditsky is dead

[pohl4711]

Today the chess world pauses in grief as grandmaster Daniel Naroditsky unexpectedly passed away.

"The Naroditsky family shares the sad news of Daniel’s unexpected passing. Daniel was a talented chess player, educator, and beloved member of the chess community. We ask for privacy as the family grieves."

Chess.com's Chief Chess Officer IM Danny Rensch worked closely with Naroditsky during several major Chess.com events, and said: "Danya was more than an amazing, inspirational face of our game, he was a friend and brother. The news is devastating for the chess world and all who knew him. It’s impossible to put words to this kind of loss. My love, thoughts and prayers are with his family," he said

https://www.chess.com/news/view/grandma ... dies-at-29




Gothamchess:

[towforce]

I have no inside information, but when cause and location of death are not given, it's often suicide.

Whatever happened, we will be told in about four weeks.

[chrisw]

I have no inside information, but when cause and location of death are not given, it's often suicide.

Whatever happened, we will be told in about four weeks.

Your post is disgusting, gossip, lacking in empathy sufficient to be psychopathic and should be deleted.

[Eelco de Groot]

Surely Graham did not mean any offence and had no intention of the sort you accuse him of. You read too much in it. If you complain then you know it has to go to the moderators Chris.

[chrisw]

Surely Graham did not mean any offence and had no intention of the sort you accuse him of. You read too much in it. If you complain then you know it has to go to the moderators Chris.

No, he didn’t mean offense, although that makes it even worse in some ways. If one’s first thought is to objectify the sad and sudden death of a young chess player into gossip speculation of a really bad type, it shows a terrible empathy lack, not to mention the taboo on the S-word nowadays (maybe you’re not up to date on this?). Anyway I am actually appalled and disgusted that such cruel and crude gossip appears here and I have to read it.

Incidentally, Eelco, I’ve known of the deaths of two very well known figures here for several years, one was a good friend of mine and it’s almost certainly unknown here that he died, and I’ve deliberately never mentioned either case, although I could have written some nice things about them, for the simple reason of fear of likelihood of the kind of ghastly gossip and objectification shown above.

[jdart]

Kramnik was posting about it. He said Daniel had been behaving strangely in a recent Twitch stream, and suggested substance abuse as a contributing factor. For what it's worth: nothing is known for sure at this point.

I remember watching some of Daniel's videos. He was a great commentator and explainer. it amazed me how deep he could see into a position. I guess this is normal for GMs, but it is quite a skill.

[Peter Berger]

Well - you can watch said stream for yourself, if you feel like it:



In general, it is considered completely inappropriate to speculate about the cause of death of people who died recently. But in this case, your evaluation probably also depends heavily on what you have read and seen.

Most adults have definitely been in a similar state as Danya was visibly in without dying. And by the end of the stream friends of his had arrived at his place and patiently tried to help and deal with the situation.

Whatever happened next or at all - we don't know.

[M ANSARI]

What a terrible terrible loss! Very sad news indeed. He will be sorely missed and he really was a very likable person. I had not seen of him for a while and about 2 days ago his video of him back doing a speed run came on my Youtube feed. In it he mentioned he had taken time out to rethink his content strategy and really nothing looked out of the ordinary ... and I was happy to see him back in action. I do think things are made worse by not revealing the cause of death as that will just make things worse by like 1000x. When someone that young passes away and it is not a car accident or other accidental death, it does usually point to issues mentioned by another poster and really there is no reason to vilify the poster as it was obviously not meant in a bad way and just stating what everyone online is speculating. Whatever the cause of his death it will not change the fact that this loss is tragic and that the chess world lost a great and humble person. Condolences to his family and to all who were close to him and may his soul rest in peace.

[Steve Maughan]

I'm deeply, deeply saddened by his death. He was one of my favorite streamers — so talented. He was in his prime — it's just so sad.

— Steve

[towforce]

Quick interjection on taboos, and when you MUST break that: the NSPCC, a British society for protection of children, recommends subtle but important language changes. From link:

Instead of saying ‘committed’ suicide, say ‘took their own life’ or ‘died by suicide.’ This removes the implication of criminality.

Instead of talking about a ‘successful,’ ‘failed’ or ‘completed’ suicide attempt, say ‘died by suicide’ or ‘tried to end their life.’ This avoids the language of achievement when discussing suicide.

Instead of referring to a child as ‘being suicidal,’ talk about how they are ‘having suicidal thoughts or feelings.’ This highlights how suicidal thoughts or feelings are something a child is experiencing, rather than suicide being part of their identity.

The time for plain talk: if you think somebody is having suicidal thoughts, it's important to ask them in plain language. If they are not, no harm done. If they are, then that is where the conversation goes next.

Regarding his final chess stream which Peter posted above: I watched the last 35 minutes, and found it impossible to make any kind of judgement without having ever watched any of his streams before. All I can say is that he looked physically healthy, and did play some good chess when he actually got opponents who, having challenged him, actually played.

He said that he had a big online chess tournament the next day with a large prize fund, which would taken place on the 18-Oct-25 - two days before he died. Does anyone happen to know whether he took part in that?