I’ve mentioned GM Daniel Naroditsky a few times on my blog, and probably watched 100+ hours of his chess content. Tonight there was a new video “You thought I was gone? Speedrun returns!” from a few days ago, but I didn’t watch it and was instead reading tech news on Slashdot … which had his obituary.

It’s a weird thing, like a celebrity death. He didn’t know me, I only knew him from his videos but unlike a celebrity he was more of a lecturer/teacher. I actually wondered if it was a prank or joke, but the Chess.com article seems legit.

He wasn’t “just a kid”, but still young enough to be a big surprise.

Update — It now appears likely that Naroditsky committed suicide due to the cheating accusations (witchhunt) from Kramnik … I knew Kramnik acused him last year but did not realize that Kramnik’s campaign against him was ongoing. (Both Magnus and Hikaru say as much in recent videos, as well as an Indian GM Nihal Sarin(?), who played and chatted with Naroditsky the day of his death).

Given this, I’m thankful that for all of the flaws, in bridge public accusations are swiftly sanctioned and stay private until they are investigated (there have still been suicides for it, but its not public harassment like Danya received).