The scandal seems a world away from the Bay Area, where Naroditsky’s old friends and mentors remember a bright, soft-spoken young man who loved volunteering to teach others the sport.
This undated photo released by Charlotte Chess Center shows Daniel Naroditsky playing chess on the board. (Kelly Centrelli/Charlotte Chess Center via APDaniel Naroditsky – including those who marveled at his brilliance from his days as a first grader in Foster City to his graduation from Stanford – explosive allegations arose Wednesday about an alleged cyberbullying campaign waged against him by a Russian grandmaster.
into the public statements of grandmaster Vladimir Kramnik, 50, who had accused Naroditsky, as well as other world champions in recent years, of online cheating. “In recent times, public debate within the chess world has too often moved beyond the boundaries of acceptable, harming not only people’s reputation but their very well-being,” Arkady Dvorkovich, president of the federation known by its French acronym FIDE, said in a statement Wednesday. “When this happens, discussions can turn into harassment, bullying, and personal attacks.” Naroditsky, whose cause of death has not been made public, had vigorously denied cheating, and other chess champions agreed theNavoditsky’s older brother, Alan, was with his mother, Elena, on Wednesday, preparing for his brother’s funeral. “Out of respect for someone who died only three days ago, I don’t wish to perpetuate drama, allegations or accusations, which only distract from honoring Daniel the person,” he said in a message to the Bay Area News Group.not only for his professional accomplishments but for the close bond he shared with the brother he called “Danya.” “I remember being inseparable as we grew up, watching our beloved Golden State Warriors together and calling each other to discuss the latest NBA highlights, or trading puns and our massive repertoire of inside jokes,” he said in a message. “He was my best friend, and one of the best human beings I have ever known.” The announcement on Monday of Naroditsky’s death made international news, with friends and former competitors extolling his finely honed skills and generous nature. But the cheating allegations and the FIDE investigation are exposing the underbelly of a rarified sport known more for silence and concentration than scandal. Naroditsky died at his home in Charlotte, North Carolina, where he ran an online chess platform and worked as a frequent commentator and chess coach.Oct. 17, two days before his death, Naroditsky said that “ever since the Kramnik stuff, I feel like if I start doing well, people assume the worst of intentions … The issue is the lingering effect of it.”Kramnik called Naroditsky’s death a tragedy and called for a police investigation. He painted himself as a maligned whistleblower trying to clean up the sport. He has claimed that online chess players use AI on an extra computer screen next to their playing screen that suggests winning moves — and their shifting eyes prove it. “Once I started to reveal in public information about the ‘dark side’ of modern chess, I became a subject of the dirtiest possible orchestrated PR campaign, including several documented murder threats,” he wrote Tuesday on X. The accusations seem a world away from the Bay Area, where Naroditsky’s old friends and mentors remember a bright, soft-spoken young man who loved volunteering to teach others the sport. In Fremont, former Ohlone College Professor Alan Kirshner, who ran scholastic chess matches, said he met Naroditsky when he was just 6, at his very first chess tournament in a Fremont auditorium. He pulled aside the boy’s father afterward and said, “you’ve got a prodigy there,” Kirshner, 87, recalls telling him. “He played a very adult game in the sense that he really thought about it. He analyzed positioning.” At Mechanics Institute in San Francisco, home of the oldest continuously-running chess club in the country dating back to 1854, tournament director Abel Talamantez remembers asking Naroditsky, who was no more than 15 at the time, to play a round of chess with 20 students at Kipp Heartwood Academy in East San Jose. His father drove him there.They stayed connected when Naroditsky enrolled at Stanford and Talamantez was impressed how, despite pressure to choose a major in finance or technology, he earned a degree in history and pursued chess full time.The scandal now surrounding his death is also tragic, he said. “It’s really a shame,” Talamantez said. “He was always a very well-intentioned and truly good person.”“We all share responsibility for ensuring that our sport remains a space of integrity, respect, and humanity,” Dvorkovich said in the FIDE statement, “values that must always prevail over hostility and division.”Dear Abby: I said I'd be in their wedding, but I'm so upset by the processional plan 'It's really tragic': Details emerge after former NFL star Doug Martin's death in Oakland police custodyAsking Eric: We gave emergency divorce money to two of our kids. Now the third wants the same.Dear Abby: If I answer truthfully to 'what's new?' they start crying For a century, they were gone. But California condors are making a comeback in these parts of the Bay Area For a century, they were gone. But California condors are making a comeback in these parts of the Bay Area
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