Daniel Naroditsky, an American chess grandmaster and one of the game’s most popular online streamers and instructors, has died at the age of 29.
The Charlotte Chess Center in North Carolina, where he was head coach, announced his death on Monday, calling him “a talented chess player, educator, and beloved member of the chess community”. His family said he should be remembered “for his passion and love for the game” in a statement shared by the club. No cause of death was given.
Known to hundreds of thousands of fans by his nickname Danya, Naroditsky blended elite skill with an uncommon ability to make chess feel human and exciting. He streamed live matches on YouTube and Twitch, narrating his moves with patience, humor and generosity. “He loved streaming, and he loved trying to be educational,” fellow American grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura said on a livestream Monday. “The chess world is very grateful.”
Born on 9 November 1995 in San Mateo, California, Naroditsky was the son of Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union: his father, Vladimir, a mathematician from Ukraine, and his mother, Lena, a pianist from Azerbaijan. He learned the game at six from his older brother, Alan, during a birthday party. “It wasn’t love at first sight,” he told the New York Times in 2022. “It was a gradual process. A lot of my best memories are just doing stuff with my brother.”
By nine, Naroditsky was the top-ranked player in the US for his age group. At 11, he won the Under-12 World Youth Championship in Turkey. Two years later he published Mastering Positional Chess, becoming one of the youngest published chess authors ever, and earned the grandmaster title at 18 after winning the US Junior Championship. He graduated from Stanford University in 2019 with a degree in history and soon moved to Charlotte to coach full time.
Naroditsky remained among the world’s top 200 classical players for much of his career, reaching a peak rating in 2017. In the faster blitz format – games played in minutes rather than hours – he was ranked in the world’s top 25 and won the US Blitz Championship this past August with a perfect 14-0 record. His quick thinking and creativity made him a fan favorite in online speed chess.
But it was his presence off the tournament board that made him famous. His YouTube and Twitch channels amassed more than 800,000 followers combined, turning him into one of the sport’s first true internet stars of the present-day chess boom. “He could explain the game to an ant,” said international master Levy Rozman, better known as GothamChess. “He existed at the perfect crossroads of playing brilliantly and explaining brilliantly.”
Naroditsky also contributed to the New York Times as a columnist and puzzle designer, creating interactive features that invited readers to replay classic matches. “Even at my level,” he said in 2022, “I can still discover beautiful things about the game every single time I train, teach, play or commentate.”
Those who worked with him remembered his kindness as much as his talent. Danny Rensch, chief chess officer at Chess.com, called him “more than an amazing, inspirational face of our game, he was a friend and brother.” His close friend and fellow grandmaster Oleksandr Bortnyk broke down on his livestream after learning the news. “He was a very good guy. A very kind guy,” Bortnyk said. “My last words to him were, ‘Danya, don’t worry about anything. I love you so much.’”
At tournaments, Naroditsky was known for chatting with fans long after rounds ended, signing autographs for kids while cracking impressions of famous players. In 2021 he scored one of his career-best wins, defeating the world No 2 Fabiano Caruana at the US Championship.
His final YouTube video, posted last Friday and titled You Thought I Was Gone!?, showed him smiling at the board, playing online games from his home studio in Charlotte. “I’m back, better than ever,” he told viewers.
Tributes have poured in from across the chess world. The eighth round of the ongoing US Championship opened with a moment of silence on Monday in St Louis, while the International Chess Federation called his death “a devastating loss”.
The popular YouTuber Charlie White (known online as penguinz0), who studied under Naroditsky for more than a year, described him as “such a wholesome presence in the chess community, and the world is a worse place without him. I don’t know if we’ll ever see another person like Daniel: so instructive, so entertaining, and so patient.”
He added: “He could teach people who had no idea how to play chess what it really means and somehow make it so fun. He was an amazing teacher, an amazing player and an incredible friend.”
Naroditsky is survived by his mother and brother. His father died in 2019.
