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Grandmaster Daniel Naroditsky died at the age of 29 after an apparently weird stream (https://youtube.com/watch?v=mzo3JHvg-iw). There has even been a Tyler Cowen 'Straussian post' that may been in reference to his passing where Tyler references negative social contagion (https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2025/10/why-live-how-suicide-becomes-an-epidemic.html). This follows an ongoing controversy where former world champion Vladimir Kramnik has either inferred or accused Naroditsky of cheating in online chess. There is no doubt that Naroditsky is a very strong chess player. He has strong over the board results where it would be difficult to cheat and also recently beat Anna Cramling blindfolded in a bullet match where he gave her time odds. (https://youtube.com/watch?v=rmLDo3SKUo8). Anna Cramling is not a top player but she is still very strong and I think this is vivid proof for non-chess people that Daniel is a strong chess player.
Kramnik has been inferring or accusing people of cheating based on their online performances in chess.com titled Tuesday events where there are cash prizes or their other games on chess.com where they have made large win streaks. In chess there is a big problem with online cheating because for strong players access to a computer evaluation of the position after their opponent had made a move would be a large advantage according to Magnus Carlson (https://youtube.com/watch?v=VcbHmHHwlUQ&t=345) and it would be very difficult for an anti-cheat system to detect this. Maybe it would be possible to correlate move time with change in evaluation to try and detect such a cheat but I suspect it would be a very noisy signal. But strong players have chosen more greedy approaches to cheating where they will play moves supplied directly from a computer engine and chess.com have some statistical methods where they are able to detect this cheating and have banned FIDE titled players for this.
There has been an outpouring of support for Daniel because he is well liked in the chess community because of the education content he puts out on youtube and his wholesome persona. Also, people feel that Kramnik's allegations against him and other people in chess have been unfounded. This includes allegations against GM David Navara (https://lichess.org/@/RealDavidNavara/blog/because-we-care/fauAwr9r) who claimed in a blog post he had suicidal thoughts due to Kramniks attacks.
Kramnik's allegations against Naroditsky also included a 'speed run' match where Naroditsky played weaker opponents on chess.com to produce educational content. In this episode Naroditsky opened a computer engine to start evaluating the game before it had ended while his opponent was stalling (https://youtube.com/watch?v=mzo3JHvg-iw). Daniel left this comment in the video explaining the situation:
Chess.com where these games were played has made some effort to legitimise speedrun accounts. Normally, such a thing would be considered a fair play violation due to smurfing but chess.com has an official way to register a speedrun account and anyone who is queued against a speedrun account would have their rating points refunded. Potentially, chess.com could have gone further and made queuing into speedrun accounts an opt-out preference and made it clearer what fairplay rules speedrun accounts could violate. For example, I'm currently enjoying a series on the sicilian dragon from a GM but when the opponent makes a mistake the GM will ask the live stream audience what is the move to take advantage of the mistake. This makes a lot of sense from a teaching point of view but is a technical violation of the chess.com fairplay rules that bars outside assistance.
Kramnik is now claiming he has contacted the Charlotte police department with new information about Daniels death (https://x.com/VBkramnik/status/1981257207917187291)
I'm not sure what information Kramnik has shared but there seems to be a conspiracy pushed by Kramnik aligned people that there is some kind of 'chess mafia'. I assume this is based around chess.com, the Charolette chess center and a bunch of popular streamers that work with chess.com. Previously, there was a character called 'ChessBae' that was able to use money and chess.com connections in order to exert influence on chess streamers (https://old.reddit.com/r/HobbyDrama/comments/oios3j/chess_the_rise_and_fall_of_chessbae_the/) so it is not completely far fetched. However, Kramnik has a history of coming up short when it comes to his accusations so based on past performance Naroditsky death will probably turn out to be unsuspicious.
Best of luck to Kramnik in his search for the real killer.
One of the interesting undercurrents in all this is the culture gap between the Russian players and the American players (Kramnik of course is Russian, and Naroditsky despite his name is American). Kramnik's name has been mud in the West ever since he started making unfounded and unhinged accusations of cheating a few years ago, but in Russia he has a lot more cultural capital to burn. Russian GM Ian Nepomniachtchi is the only other top player I know of to even imply that there is anything suspicious about Naroditsky.
Postscript - I never understood the appeal of Anna Cramling, but seeing her in side profile in the video you linked made it click.
You promised far more than she could deliver, but on the other hand, you got me to click on the link, so touché.
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