An American chess star who died at the age of 29 had been involved in a heated dispute with a rival player who accused him of cheating. One of Daniel Naroditsky’s last opponents has now claimed that his rival may have played a role in his untimely death. Naroditsky’s sudden death in Charlotte, North Carolina, was announced Monday by his club, the Charlotte Chess Center.
The cause of death has not yet been revealed by authorities. Naroditsky earned the title of Grandmaster at just 18 years old. In the past year, he had been embroiled in a bitter feud, facing harsh accusations of cheating from former world champion Vladimir Kramnik.
Mysterious Death of a Superstar
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Kramnik, 50, suggested that his American rival was using footage of Naroditsky’s online games to imply that Naroditsky was consulting a second screen running a powerful computer program capable of calculating millions of moves per second.
Naroditsky consistently denied any wrongdoing and had not faced similar accusations from any other top-level players.
After making these claims, Kramnik deleted his chess.com account and launched a GoFundMe campaign to raise funds for his stated mission of “trying to clean modern chess from cheating,” though he did not specify exactly how the money would be used.
In a final Twitch stream, later deleted, Naroditsky was seen repeatedly falling asleep while playing, talking about the toll of Kramnik’s accusations, and appearing visibly distressed, according to El País.
After Naroditsky’s death was announced, Kramnik posted a cryptic message saying, “Don’t do drugs,” and also referenced a “strange recent stream” from the American chess star.
Mystery Continues
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Kramnik’s seemingly indifferent reaction drew widespread outrage across the chess community. “He [Kramnik] has kind of literally taken a life,” Indian chess Grandmaster Nihal Sarin told the Indian Express.
Sarin, the last player to compete against Naroditsky online before his death, said the American seemed visibly troubled during their final match.
“He said he was under immense stress due to a lot of baseless accusations — headed by Kramnik, of course. Apparently, unfortunately, quite a few others also seem to have joined in,” Sarin said.
Russian chess star Kramnik, who resides in Switzerland, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
