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<\/a><\/p>\nDaniel Naroditsky playing in a chess tournament in 2016. (Wikimedia Commons)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Naroditsky\u2019s death was announced Monday by the Charlotte Chess Center, a chess academy in North Carolina, where he worked as a head coach. Information on his survivors and a cause of death was not immediately available.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is great sadness that we share the unexpected passing of Daniel Naroditsky. Daniel was a talented chess player, commentator, and educator, and a cherished member of the chess community, admired and respected by fans and players around the world. He was also a loving son and brother, and a loyal friend to many,\u201d the Naroditsky family wrote in a statement shared by the Charlotte Chess Center.<\/p>\n
As a teenager, Naroditsky published books on chess strategy, including \u201cMastering Positional Chess\u201d in 2010 and \u201cMastering Complex Endgames\u201d in 2012.<\/p>\n
Naroditsky earned his chess grandmaster title, the highest honor given to competitors by the International Chess Federation, in 2013 when he was 17 and had yet to graduate high school.<\/p>\n
He was an active content creator on Twitch and Youtube, where he had nearly 500,000 subscribers.<\/p>\n
Known as Danya, Naroditsky was born on Nov. 9, 1995, in San Mateo, California to Vladimir Naroditsky and Lena Schuman, Jewish immigrants who came to the United States from Ukraine and Azerbaijan, respectively. Naroditsky attended Ronald C. Wornick Jewish Day School in Foster City, California and was bar mitzvahed at Peninsula Temple Beth El in San Mateo in 2009.<\/p>\n
In November 2007, Naroditsky was named the under-12 World Youth Chess Champion, telling J. The Jewish News of Northern California at the time that he \u201ccouldn\u2019t play chess without loving it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI played a rabbi,\u201d a 10-year-old Naroditsky said after he earned the title. \u201cHe lost right away and instead of losing normally he threw all the pieces in the air and stormed out. I almost laughed.\u201d<\/p>\n
He graduated with a bachelor\u2019s degree in history from Stanford University in 2019 after taking a year off to play in chess tournaments.<\/p>\n
Naroditsky was introduced to the game by his brother, Alan, at just 6 years old and quickly developed an aptitude for the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think a lot of people want to imagine that it was love at first sight and that my brother couldn\u2019t pull me away from the chessboard,\u201d Naroditsky told the New York Times in 2022, when he was introduced as its chess columnist. \u201cIt was more of a gradual process, where chess slowly entered the battery of stuff we did to pass the time. A lot of my best memories are just doing stuff with my brother.\u201d<\/p>\n
In his last video uploaded to YouTube, titled \u201cYou Thought I Was Gone!? Speedrun Returns!,\u201d Naroditsky told his fans that after a brief pause he was \u201cback and better than ever.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI still can\u2019t believe it and don\u2019t want to believe it,\u201d tweeted Dutch grandmaster Benjamin Bok about news of Naroditsky\u2019s death. \u201cIt was always a privilege to play, train, and commentate with Danya, but above all, to call him my friend.\u201d<\/p>\n
At the time of his death, Naroditsky was ranked in the top 160 players in the world and the top 20 players in the United States, according to the International Chess Federation. He especially excelled at a fast-paced version of the game called blitz chess, for which he maintained a top 25 ranking throughout his adult career.<\/p>\n
Naroditsky\u2019s father, Vladimir, died in 2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe ask for privacy for Daniel\u2019s family during this extremely difficult time,\u201d the statement from his family continued. \u201cLet us remember Daniel for his passion and love for the game of chess, and for the joy and inspiration he brought to us every day.\u201d<\/p>\n