GM Daniel Naroditsky, the Shakespeare of Chess: A Fan's Tribute

It was Daniel’s wit which turned me into one of his many fans, but it was his teaching which engrossed me and greatly inspired me. Let’s put chess aside for a second. Outside of chess, I am a university lecturer and professional educator. Like all professionals, I have role models who I look up to as exemplars in my field; people who I try to emulate, because I know that channeling them - however imperfectly - in my own classes will help my students greatly. Daniel was - is - such a role model for me. For most mortals, the tradeoff between teaching in a way that is accessible, warm, and yet also deep and truthful, is extremely hard to navigate. Most of us have to sacrifice one or other of these to a significant degree. He managed to combine all of these qualities in a way I have not seen matched by any other teacher.

One of Danya’s admirable traits was his masterful command of the English language. He was witty, and he was incredibly erudite. Like many geniuses, he coined so many new concepts and phrases to capture his prodigious understanding, so that the wider chess world could share in his brilliance. For his combination of wit, profundity and playfulness with words, I consider him to be the Shakespeare of chess.

There are videos with Danya’s commentary on YouTube, such as the Nihal vs. Arjun Junior SCC Final from 2022, which I have watched dozens of times, and endlessly plug to any of my chess friends who will listen. His videos were pretty much the only chess content my wife felt engaged by - and believe me, I have tried many ways to encourage her interest in chess! My lunchtime routine used to begin by turning on the TV and typing Danya’s name into the YouTube search bar, looking for his next speedrun video, and I would return to work afterwards only grudgingly.

Outside of chess, I have occasionally encountered people in person who were true prodigies - world-leading academic philosophers, for example. When watching Danya’s videos, I would often get the same impression of raw brilliance. His ability to spot incredibly complicated tactics instantly was otherworldly.

I was very much hoping and, to be honest, taking for granted, that Danya would still be educating the chess world in some distant future as a wizened old veteran. It is truly, truly tragic that he will not be.

We will not be able to fully measure Danya’s chess legacy. We often wonder how low-rated players are so unbelievably strong these days. Then, when you reflect on it, you remember that the chess world has had free training from absolutely world-class players and educators like Danya. It was incredibly generous for him to educate the chess public in the way he did, leaving so much incredible material open to anybody, for free.

We usually think of the fact that so many people are underrated nowadays as a pain; something which makes it incredibly hard to reach our rating goals. Actually, it is a beautiful thing: the quality of chess games, especially at the intermediate level, has never been higher, and our opportunities to play beautiful games and challenge ourselves in chess today have never been more extensive. This is certainly thanks, in significant part, to Danya. I think this is part of his legacy which he would be incredibly proud of.

As a person, I found Danya’s perspective on controversies of the day in the chess world to be marked by restraint, carefulness, respect, and humility. In the various podcast appearances he made, he would often defend (younger) players, such as Alireza Firouzja, from hyperbolic criticisms from online trolls or ne’er-do-wells. When Alireza performed poorly in the Candidates and people started to write him off, Danya called out how unfair and irrational this was. During the Niemann controversy, Danya acted quickly as a voice of moderation who helped clarify that Niemann’s recent play was actually not very suspicious. I admire how Danya fiercely defended his juniors. This is an example which is very important for us to follow.

It seemed to me that Danya had a melancholic side to his personality, even before he was subject to allegations of cheating by Kramnik. Like many prodigious talents, I think he set standards for himself which were perhaps impossibly high to meet. I recall that during his video analysing his brilliant win vs. Fabiano Caruana, one of the greatest players of all time, he was racked by self-doubt half-way through, thinking that the viewers in chat were bored by his explanations. When he was self-deprecating, it was not false humility. It was real.

Like other highly competitive and creative fields, chess is likely to produce incredibly talented people who drive themselves towards perfection - people like Danya. It is, for those people, a profoundly intense and emotional struggle at times, even despite the times of joy. For the rest of us, it can be a spectacle, or enriching and educational, to follow such brilliant people. But if being part of the chess community means anything, it needs to mean that we need to care for everyone in our chess world - especially those who are vulnerable.

We do not know about the specific circumstances of Danya’s death, and I don't think speculation about it is appropriate. It would, however, be amiss to ignore the accusations of cheating which Kramnik levelled against Danya in recent times.

Let me say first of all that I am strongly convinced that Danya was innocent, and not a cheater. No good evidence, to my knowledge, has been presented to the contrary.

It is a mark of the scale of Danya's contribution to the chess world that even if, improbably, seemingly impossibly, he was guilty of cheating, I would still argue that his overall contribution to the chess world would be a huge net positive. While cheating is incredibly harmful and should not be tolerated, Danya did so much good via his educational content that he would deserve enormous gratitude and love, irrespective of anything else.

Whatever may emerge later about the causes and circumstances of Danya's death, it is incredibly sad that the last months of his tragically short life were affected negatively by the accusations. Having given so much of himself to chess and the chess world, it is easy to understand why he would have found the allegations so unsettling and disturbing.

If it means anything to be part of the chess community, we must learn to love and care for each other - especially the vulnerable among us - above all else. Danya leaves a brilliant, immeasurably vibrant legacy, but we also need to work to make him even more proud of us.

Rest in peace, Daniel.