This seems as good a place as any for a mini obituary.
I'm 6 years older than Danya, and we shared the same beloved chess coach in the Bay Area. I played him in a tournament game when I was 17 and he was 11, at the Mechanics Club in SF. I was an NM, and he held me to a draw. (Afterward he told me my position was better when we agreed to a draw, which was news to me!)
Around that time Danya won the World Under 12 Championship. Americans almost never win those events, and it was a big big deal in the American chess community.
But to me, most impressive was when in 2007, at age 12, in 6th or 7th grade, he won a much easier tournament, the California High School championship. I had won it the previous year, as an 11th grader - my crowning achievement. We all knew then that Naroditsky was a generational talent, but it was something special that this child - very tall for his age, but still oh so young - beat up all the serious high schooler competitors.
He then went to Stanford, and took an introductory CS course taught by my brother. Everything I heard indicated he was an exceptional contribution to Stanford's culture. He had such wide interests and curiosity, and became a history major. He probably was the most erudite chess player of his generation, reading (and writing!) books at a huge clip.
I remember vividly in his early streaming days, long before Danya became an internet chess celebrity, he was taking challenges while I was watching, so I logged in to the site and played him. I managed to beat him in a blitz game in front of all of his viewers. He was mad! I'm a strong blitz player but he is world-class, consistently a top ~10 blitz player in the world for the last 10 years. (I used to watch him on the old terminal-like chess server, the Internet Chess Club, under the handle "Danya", as he destroyed everyone while still a preteen and largely unknown.)
I don't want to add to the speculation to what happened to him. Suffice to say, I am not convinced by the story people are jumping to.
He will be deeply missed, and he will not be forgotten. He was absolutely unique and a gem of the chess world. Farewell, Danya.
I (like many) started playing chess online during COVID and despite being too damn old, I wanted to see how high I could climb in ratings. Soon I found Danya, then Gotham, then IMRosen. All who loved this damn game so much. Even found I liked Hikaru though as an oldster, so many of his memes went over my head.
I soon realized that no matter how hard I tried, I would never be ranked, and I was fine with that because lichess had become an outlet. An outlet from the horrors of COVID. An outlet from the shock of a brutal war in Europe. An outlet from my failing marriage. An outlet from the world turned upside down in the US. I could always find solace in a rapid game on lichess.
Danya... I plateaued around 1400 and often found it hard to follow his gameplay on his speed runs. He was thinking 4-5 moves ahead while I was trying to avoid simple blunders. But Danya was easy to listen to, humble, and he helped instill a love in me of being very honest in my game evaluation. He also seemed like an incredibly charitable player; when it was obvious someone was cheating, he always gave them the benefit of the doubt, even when stockfish made it clear what was happening. His charity and kindness was endearing.
Similar story. One of my new hobbies from Covid. Also maybe too damn old ;) Ben Finegold was my YouTube teacher for the most part. I'm still improving (a bit higher than you) and sometimes questioning my sanity of having spent so many hours playing chess online. It's an addiction ;)
Danya seemed like a great person. Someone you'd want to hang out with. A great chess player for sure. I heard the news earlier and was filled with sadness. Such a loss.
You might not ever get titled, but a 1400 online is very much good enough to join your national chess federation and be middle of the pack competitive in local rated chess tournaments and the like.
I feel weird doing a 'well actually' in a post about something so serious and sad, but it might be worth pointing this out to prevent someone from getting the wrong idea about their chess strength: the meaning of '1400 online' varies greatly depending on the site and the time control. According to https://chessgoals.com/rating-comparison/, Chesscom blitz 500 = Lichess classical 1400, and chesscom blitz 1400 = lichess rapid 1880. (I don't know how accurate that site is, but the general point is definitely true; AFAIK Lichess and Chesscom use different rating systems with different means, and within each site the strength of the player pool varies across the time controls.)
Regarding the flagged/dead comment that links to concern about Daniel Naroditsky's health a few days ago, I don't think burrying our heads in the sand is correct approach now.
It might have been wise to respect his privacy and not talk about him publicly and while he was alive and could read it, but now that posting it cannot affect his mental health, perhaps mental health awareness is important to talk about.
(A side note, I still think the privacy of those who pass away is important, but I think talking about mental health is also important.)
Could have been an adverse reaction to Benadryl or his sleep disturbances could have been a warning sign.
"BeccaHarris: I took a Benadryl to make sure I got 8+ hours of sleep, it hit me a lot faster and harder than expected. before I knew it 15+ mins had passed and I nodded off a few times, and suddenly poeople were freaking ou"
I suggest we stop speculating about the cause of death and instead wait for an official announcement to be made. Please respect the family at this time.
I get respecting the family while grieving but let’s be real here, is anyone from the family realistically going to even find let alone care about random strangers speculating on a random internet platform that isn’t even related to chess?
The chance of this even reaching them is infinitesimally small. We’re not standing around talking about it with them in the room, we shouldn’t be pretending like we are.
The concern is more about speculation specifically. Internet armchair-investigations regularly get out of control and fills discussion with what reliably later turns out to be misinformation, in addition to being disrespectful at sensitive time.
Low quality blogs and "news" reporters also directly pull from online discussions, and before you know it, hypothetical drug use is a major discussion point, which is unfortunate.
I have seen people that I would have never expected to have heard about HN, show up here. The odds that someone tells the family to come look may not be that high. But they are very far from zero.
Most other internet forums that I've been on I would not say this about.
Just watched his last stream that people were talking about on reddit, and his behavior was definitely strange. Saying random stuff then nodding off halfway, and being aggravated to put it simply.
Morbid curiosity is maybe natural but I think it's bad form for a bunch of online speculation into cause of death by armchair researchers. He's a real person and his family and friends are real people and they deserve freedom from that kind of speculation running wild across the Internet. There's no benefit for anyone, it's just curiosity that shouldn't be engaged in.
Danya was such an incredibly positive influence on the chess community, a tremendous teacher whose YouTube content I’m sure will remain popular for years to come, and my personal favorite chess commentator.
He was also only 29 years old.
I’m actually in tears right now struggling how to break this news to my son, who absolutely loved Danya and had a chance to play him OTB last year.
Really devastating. He was my favorite chess streamer and such a genuine person. I remember distinctly every time his opponent was suspected of cheating he was adamant in giving them the benefit of the doubt.
No matter what we find out in the next few days, I wish authorities had taken Kramnik’s cyber bullying more seriously. It’s a stain on chess that this is allowed to continue.
To take the conversation in a more technical direction, there are pretty clear parallels with “AI detector” technology which also could be (and I’m sure has been) life ruining. For both writing and chess, there are no authenticity detectors, only circumstantial evidence.
Kramnik should be held accountable for making Danya's life hell the past year. Not blaming him for what has happened but this bullying has to stop. It was clear to me and many others that he started attacking Danya because he was a "Russian boy" who did not defend him when Hikaru mocked Kramnik. I'm really upset now so maybe not making much sense.
If you're not blaming him, then you shouldn't hold him accountable.
Kramnik has accused of online cheating virtually every grandmaster bar some of the top 10 and none in the community gives Kramnik much weight on this topic.
I'm sure he said bad things about Danya, and even now he's protecting himself when he should be just sorry for what terrible thing has happened, but generally Danya was more liked than Kramnik, so he can't be responsible / accountable for something he doesn't have power over (Danya's life).
If you are famous, you will have haters, it's part of the deal.
I agree with the crowd who say that mental health issues should be taken seriously instead of kept under the rug.
Trying not to sound too cold, he seemed like a very nice guy and i did not know him. It was not surprising for me. I remember seeing interview with him when he took things very personal and could not let things go some year back. Thought at that time that he was at high risk of suicide. He seemed to have a self loathing personality / depression and obsessive behaviors.
Staying on the Internet and be dependent on it in some way financially working as a streamer with all the short form communication and negativity online. Together with cyber bullies etc. A lot of things creating a perfect storm for what seemed to be a sensitive and very nice guy. Easy to say that his family and real life friends should have seen it too and make him change path but in reality it is difficult.
Especially since things that make it worse like sitting down and playing chess all day / night and not getting enough sleep, together with cyber bullies is also the things that you love, you earn money on and you have many of your friends there.
I asked Perplexity what people are speculating online might have been the cause of his death, and it mostly appears to revolve around mental health issues, substance abuse & self harm. Whether or not it's true, this is a tragic loss. Smart & talented people can often be very sensitive.
Having struggled with these same issues for most of my adult life I'll just say it's nothing to be ashamed of and if you or someone you care about is in pain or struggling, don't hesitate to reach out. There are resources out there for you and it doesn't make you weak for using them.
From what I understand, Kramnick pointed out Danya's behaviour was erratic and suspected alcohol or drug use (everyone else broached it much more sensitively, saying drugs was a ridiculous notion, and giving him space/privacy but perhaps suspecting possible mental health, mental breakdown, or maybe narcolepsy).
Kramnick may have been forthright and lacking tact, but it was clear from Danya's behaviours that he sadly had an underlying psychological condition that could happen to any of us.
Kramnick repeatedly accused Danya of cheating, which prompted a lot of ongoing abuse from his acolytes. Danya spoke publicly about the stress this caused him several times.
Of course, as ever, Kramnick had nothing to back up his claims, a fact which in no way prevented him repeating them ad-nauseum.
That's not being "forthright" or "lacking tact". That's being an abusive asshole.
A tweet by IM Kostya Kavutskiy of ChessDojo from November 2024 (paraphrased):
> Our intention was to express concern for what's going on. Many of us supported Kramnik's fight against online cheating for some time.
> But then he started naming players left & right, some of whom were likely 100% innocent, who got their name dragged through the mud regardless. Kramnik also started naming actual children at one point, without any real evidence from what I could tell
> And it's not "just asking questions", it's casting aspersions. And the words of any world champion obviously carry a lot of responsibility.
This whole cheating kerfuffle would have never happened if people would have switched to games or variations of games that are not beaten by computers.
This has been discussed to death but to reiterate here: people have been much too polite about Kramnick's nonsense. Danya and Hikaru are (were) probably the two people in the world whose bullet play is least suspicious. Cheating isn't very powerful in short time controls, and they have streamed thousands of games playing them.
Kramnick's bullshit never made any damn sense at all.
Well, i feel a bit reluctant about sharing this, because it is so sad, but the following was recorded not long ago ... wouldn't be surprised if they took it down
A sad day for chess and chess fans around the world. I smiled when I saw this news posted here - Danya would have loved being among the nerds (I always saw him as one). I will never forget the final game, game 14 of WC2024 between Ding and Gukesh commentated by Peter Leko and Daniel. His reaction[1] at 4:18:40, when Ding blundered with Rf2 is priceless.
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqA9mvyI0j4
Danya's death hit hard. He was a kind soul that was always generous with his time who loved playing, teaching and commentating chess and was easily one of the nicest GMs in chess.
I was an avid watcher of his Stream while he was regular streamer and commentator (amongst the best in the world), unfortunately saw the effect of his once idol Kramnik's accusations had on him, having to constantly prove himself, even in is his last stream [1], playing beyond exhaustion to the point his friends had to get him to physically switch off his stream, but he didn't want to because he was worried that if he had good results off stream that people would raise questions.
Kramnik was an ex World Champion, became unhinged and started indiscriminately accusing many GMs who beat him in short time controls of cheating, absurd claims made from his bedroom watching streams playing detective, where he accused #2 GM Hikaru that he had access to an evaluation bar which his editors added on his games he reviews before publishing them to YouTube [2]. In addition to torturing Danya with accusations for a year he also drove GM David Navara to depression [3] who he is currently trying to sue for defamation.
Even my local Swedish newspaper paid him respects. It may feel a bit better knowing that somewhere half way across the world, people knew him and considered him a celebrity.
Danya was like the Mr. Rogers of chess. He had a way of making you feel accepted into the chess community even if you were a beginner, and was such a clear thinker. I strive to be more like him, and am devastated by this loss.
I am deeply saddened by Danya's passing. I'm not a massive chess player, but I regard him as one of the top 10 most awe inspiring individuals I've had the pleasure of witnessing through his YT channel. I was genuinely awed and impressed by the guy. As deeply as I am saddened, I am also angered by the context within which he has passed. Extremely angry. So extremely angry.
Literally yesterday my toddler son came into the room, saw me watching his last video - "You thought I was gone?! Speedrun returns!" - and asked me who that is.
I told him his name is Danya and he teaches people how to play a game.
Ouch. Danya was a great player (world rank 151, USA rank 17). Popular player, teacher, streamer and chess event commentator. Studied at Stanford. The NY Times' current chess columnist. About to turn 30 years old.
I think all chess fans can recall Ivanchuk's recent mortifying defeat at Naroditsky's lightning-quick hands at World Blitz. Just goes to show no matter how devastating the loss, someone, perhaps even your vanquisher, is having an even harder time.
Apparently he did a stream where he looked pretty bad. It's too late to help Danya but if you ever see a friend in a bad place hopefully this reminds you to take action.
I'm heartbroken. It's been a few years since I met him in person but loved watching him on his streams. He was such a ray of light beloved by all. Like others I noted with alarm his appearance and strange behavior the past few months. Hope his family finds peace.
I've watched so many of his videos..He always seemed like a great guys, and so brilliant. He also always seemed like he had a deep sadness about him. That has always been my impression, but of course just a personal impression. I don't know the cause of his death, but, of course I wonder.
This is terrible news if true; so young and such a positive voice and influence.
One of the best live commentators, and among a generation of savvy chess influencers he seemed particularly sincere and without motivation beyond love of the game and communicating it's brilliance to others.
There's huge pink elephant that I think many aren't aware of here.
A former chess world champion, Vladimir Kramnik, has turned into a sort of self satire seeking out cheaters in online chess. Basically everybody is cheating according to him, he even implied Hikaru Nakamura, the 2nd strongest player in the world, could be cheating.
Eventually his sights fell on Danya. At first I thought they were both kind of playing it up as a sort of a joke. For instance after the accusations Danya did a video where he had something absurd like a dozen different cameras watching him play from different angles. And in response Kramnik mentioned some petty absurdity that I can't even recall at this point - maybe there was a laptop on a chair or something? 'What is that computer Danya, suspicious, him?' And this sort of nonsense continued on for some time.
I still think Kramnik is doing it as a half-serious joke, but Danya clearly took it very seriously. He believed that his reputation had been ruined (even though just most people think Kramnik is the one who has mostly destroyed his own reputation and mostly just seen as a bit 'kooky' now a days) and Danya became a dramatically different person over about 2 years.
Previously he was kind of a happy go lucky blitz obsessed guy. But he gradually became increasingly morose and insecure. He also seemed to be losing weight, though I have no idea if that is accurate - I'm basing it solely on outside appearances which can be misleading. In any case, this was almost certainly related, and it makes the whole situation far darker.
Sure, but all the same, given what you've said, isn't it a bit weird that Kramnik himself has rushed to raise drug taking suspicions? Is he trying to divert attention? Regardless of whether he has anything to do with this, it would have been classy of him to stay quiet for a while about this
It's not pinning anything on anybody. It's explaining the context to the probably 99% of people who have no idea what was going on here. Obviously this news was a shock to everybody, but it's also a case where you can kind of immediately understand why. Everybody could see he was fading before our eyes, but nobody realized quite how serious it was.
I can't imagine how awful his friend and boss feel right now. He was behaving extremely erratically on his final stream to the point that they dropped by at 1am (granted that's more like 3pm in typical chess player time) to try to get him to stop playing, calm down, and just go to bed. They're obviously going to be asking themselves if they could have done more. The same is even true of Hikaru who recounted his last conversation with Danya, which was again about trying to help him up, and he teared up while again wondering if he could have done more.
And the catalyst for his decline was the cheating accusations. Yet the one 'mitigating' thing for Kramnik is that Danya really fell out of touch with reality with regards to the accusations. He made it clear that he felt many, if not most, people felt he was cheating. But in reality, basically nobody did. Kramnik has become basically a meme to the point that his accusations hold about as much weight as being called a naughty name online.
Of course from Danya's perspective it was going to be much more painful because he mentioned that Kramnik was one of his chess idols growing up. And people don't understand the amount of work it takes to become very good at chess. To then have one of your idols turn around and claim you're cheating, which is essentially pissing on all your work, is going to sting. And Danya had an immense, substantially more than average, amount of reverence for the title of world champion, which he felt that was causing people to believe Kramnik.
He felt the world was turning against him, but it simply wasn't. And the catalyst for this change was the accusations.
These are things you know? Or this is what you imagine might have happened and what he might have been thinking? For me it makes quite a big difference on how seriously to take you, if you actually know him or not (not in a parasocial way).
This is not hypothetical. He made his views on the topic completely clear, repeatedly. The entire accusations had essentially started to become a major part of who he was and he endlessly focused on them. He also mentioned what I said about them coming from Kramnik and how that was particularly hurtful for him.
On his Twitch streams this issue was constantly brought up. While the frequency of discussion was obviously highest around the time of the accusations, it was brought up in basically every single stream, all alongside the very visible decline of his overall 'wellness' over the past ~2 years.
This [1] is from his final stream, and it's clear he was already at the breaking point. I feel most awful for his friend Bortnyk (one of the two voices you hear in the background there essentially having an intervention), he's going to be beating himself up thinking he could have done more, for years to come.
Everybody could see Danya deteriorating, but somehow I think nobody really realized just how 'real' it was. Magnus, who also regularly followed Danya's streams, has mentioned that he somewhat regrets not coming out publicly in defense of him. Probably in part because his views on cheating were already somewhat tainted at this point, and probably in part because nobody wanted to be the next person Kramnik started going after.
The chess community is generally against it, though they're also laughing at Kramnik for his absurd his behaviour is. I'd be surprised if Kramnik's behaviour is a major contributing factor (given we don't know anything about Danya's cause of death), but if it is, I would hope he finds himself shunned from the community at a minimum.
As it is, he's already behaved in awful ways: accusing children of cheating without evidence, for example, and effectively doxxing them.
He had a very bad time at Freestyle a while ago and he quit that if I remember correctly. These things could be many reasons, internal and external. Stop accusing Kramnik, everyone knows he throws around cheating accusations at anything that moves.
so another victim of the algorithm? social media promotes this type of bullying behavior as advertisers are Happy to put their ads in harasing videos as long they dont say certain words. Ridiculous. Its sad that platforms themselves are above the law, of course in the TOS they promise democracy but its a lie and they give us Roman colloseum as its what sells the most
I've seen people trying to blame Kramnik for this, with his cheating accusations and all. I think Kramnik is a jerk like everyone else, but it still seems crazy to point the finger at him. We could find out tomorrow that Naroditsky died of a random stroke. We just have no idea at this point.
If life could be measured in potential moves considered, he lived
several lifetimes. Sad to see such a force of nature expire so soon.
Condolences to the Russian chick and their kid.
There's something oddly devastating about seeing people pass away in these online communities. I've never been one to really be affected by celebrities passing away, but I remember a few years when Geoff Robinson died (who was active in the Starcraft scene) that one hit me surprisingly badly as well.
Obviously it's banal in a sense because you always know people can die, but there's something very weird about seeing someone livestream one day and then you just get a headline like this on the next.
One can only hope that Kramnik is held accountable for his abusive behavior that - at the very least - had contributing factors (to put it gently) to Danya's death.
I think there's some correlation but no, you can be amazingly strong at chess and not super-intelligent by other measures, or be incredibly good at physics or philosophy or poetry or whatever and have no talent for chess.
But, having watched some of Naroditsky's videos, it seems pretty clear that he was in fact very intelligent as well as very good at chess.
Maybe, exactly what are you asking? What even is intelligence - that is a question I've never seen formally answered (and even if someone does, their definition may not match your intuitive feel for what it means and thus it is useless outside of the exact paper they defined it in)
Formal definitions aside, it isn't possible for "stupid" people to be good at chess. There also is no other animal or known alien that is good at chess. Thus being good at chess is a strong sign of an intelligent human.
We can't go the other way. There are plenty of humans generally known to be "intelligent" who are not good at chess. There is a lot more than intelligence needed to be good at chess (practice and study come to mind, there might be more).
While there are no known aliens that are good at chess, that doesn't preclude that we may discover them in the future. (not in your lifetime though - the speed of light is too slow for them to learn the rules of our chess and communicate back proof that they are good, no matter how intelligent they are)
I think Hikaru’s fans made him take an IQ or intelligence test a couple of years ago and it showed he wasn’t exactly a mastermind. He said at the time something along the lines that being good at chess shows you are intelligent only in that one domain of chess-type thinking, not general intelligence.
Not that long ago I would have said no, but I increasingly think that intelligence is mostly about the ability to learn. And chess, at a high level, requires a mixture of achieving an extremely high degree of unconscious competence working right alongside a high degree of conscious competence for things like opening prep. And most, if not all, high level chess players that have tried, in earnest, to do things outside of chess have excelled across a wide variety of fields.
But I think where people get confused is in the inverse. If you take a very smart person and he dedicates two years of his life to chess, all alongside training from some of the world's best, then he's still going to be, at best, a strong amateur at the end. In fact I know at least one instance where this exact experiment was tried. This is generally unlike other fields where such an effort would generally put you well into the realm of mastery.
But that's the unconscious competence part - chess takes many years of very serious training to even start to have it become 'natural' for you, and it's that point that your training journey begins all over again because suddenly things like opening preparation starts to become critical. So it can give the appearance that since seemingly smart people don't do particularly well at chess, while people like Magnus who has/had (daddyhood changes a lot...) a complete 'bro' personality, is arguably the strongest player of all time, it gives the impression that being smart must not be a prerequisite for success at chess.
The education system bored me a lot and made an effort to portray me as some kind of mentally disabled retard. It was rather interesting to me that successful career grown ups couldn't win a single game.
I wasn't interested in chess but I could see their entire plan unfold on the board. Unless they were actually good I didn't even try to win, in stead I let them unfold their plan into their own demise.
My winning streak ended when I got to play against the best kid from a different school. His was the biggest brain I have ever seen from the inside. He pretty much violated basic principles of the game in a way that still bothers me 35 years later.
The game was much to open to really look far ahead. The way one would play against a computer. His actual goal was to trade his knights and bishops for two pawns each!?!?! He pulled off 3 such trades. He carefully set up the trades and it made no fkn sense.
Then came a really long and slow pawn push that didn't allow me to trade my knights and bishops for more than a single pawn.
It took so many moves that he pretty much convinced me that 2 bishops and a knight are worth less than 5 points. I haven't seen a second game like it but I'm still 100% convinced.
The ability to plan and operate several moves ahead of one’s opponent has always suggested higher intelligence.
When applied to war we celebrate the general’s brilliance. When applied to economics we say they had excellent foresight. When applied to any human endeavor, except chess, the accomplishment is celebrated as a human achievement.
This is due to humans placing great value upon thinking and planning ahead. Only the intelligent exhibit this behavior.
Intelligence has been defined in many ways: the capacity for abstraction, logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving. It can be described as the ability to perceive or infer information and to retain it as knowledge to be applied to adaptive behaviors within an environment or context.
(from Wikipedia)
Intelligence is multifactoral. Being good at chess was one aspect of intelligence in the complexity of Daniel's life, and in anyone's life.
> Why? Well, the basic idea behind this theory is that people are different, and maybe you’ve noticed – they really are. People have different interests, different abilities, different moods, etc.
The author isn’t saying that the multiple-intelligence theory is itself valid. Rather, in an educational context, there is a kernel of value in the idea that different students are different. That’s entirely consistent with intelligence being a single thing.
One aspect is that highly intelligent people have a hard time asking for help as they are used to always having the answers. It's entirely foreign to them.
No[1]. It is a common misconception that puts more stigma on people with mental illness. My family called my schizoaffective disorder a "gift" because I was creative and intelligent. This lead them to ignore my suffering, which made me more depressed.
When a rate of 8% of the US population reporting having a major depressive episode in their lives, there appears to be a correlation between depression and life unfortunately:
Life in the fallen world is indeed dark, and certainly was darker a mere few generations ago. The difference is we have lost the frameworks generations past used for dealing with major depressive episodes, and have opted for more "enlightened" approaches that are clearly working /s
This seems as good a place as any for a mini obituary.
I'm 6 years older than Danya, and we shared the same beloved chess coach in the Bay Area. I played him in a tournament game when I was 17 and he was 11, at the Mechanics Club in SF. I was an NM, and he held me to a draw. (Afterward he told me my position was better when we agreed to a draw, which was news to me!)
Around that time Danya won the World Under 12 Championship. Americans almost never win those events, and it was a big big deal in the American chess community.
But to me, most impressive was when in 2007, at age 12, in 6th or 7th grade, he won a much easier tournament, the California High School championship. I had won it the previous year, as an 11th grader - my crowning achievement. We all knew then that Naroditsky was a generational talent, but it was something special that this child - very tall for his age, but still oh so young - beat up all the serious high schooler competitors.
He then went to Stanford, and took an introductory CS course taught by my brother. Everything I heard indicated he was an exceptional contribution to Stanford's culture. He had such wide interests and curiosity, and became a history major. He probably was the most erudite chess player of his generation, reading (and writing!) books at a huge clip.
I remember vividly in his early streaming days, long before Danya became an internet chess celebrity, he was taking challenges while I was watching, so I logged in to the site and played him. I managed to beat him in a blitz game in front of all of his viewers. He was mad! I'm a strong blitz player but he is world-class, consistently a top ~10 blitz player in the world for the last 10 years. (I used to watch him on the old terminal-like chess server, the Internet Chess Club, under the handle "Danya", as he destroyed everyone while still a preteen and largely unknown.)
I don't want to add to the speculation to what happened to him. Suffice to say, I am not convinced by the story people are jumping to.
He will be deeply missed, and he will not be forgotten. He was absolutely unique and a gem of the chess world. Farewell, Danya.
I (like many) started playing chess online during COVID and despite being too damn old, I wanted to see how high I could climb in ratings. Soon I found Danya, then Gotham, then IMRosen. All who loved this damn game so much. Even found I liked Hikaru though as an oldster, so many of his memes went over my head.
I soon realized that no matter how hard I tried, I would never be ranked, and I was fine with that because lichess had become an outlet. An outlet from the horrors of COVID. An outlet from the shock of a brutal war in Europe. An outlet from my failing marriage. An outlet from the world turned upside down in the US. I could always find solace in a rapid game on lichess.
Danya... I plateaued around 1400 and often found it hard to follow his gameplay on his speed runs. He was thinking 4-5 moves ahead while I was trying to avoid simple blunders. But Danya was easy to listen to, humble, and he helped instill a love in me of being very honest in my game evaluation. He also seemed like an incredibly charitable player; when it was obvious someone was cheating, he always gave them the benefit of the doubt, even when stockfish made it clear what was happening. His charity and kindness was endearing.
The world is a much lesser place today.
Similar story. One of my new hobbies from Covid. Also maybe too damn old ;) Ben Finegold was my YouTube teacher for the most part. I'm still improving (a bit higher than you) and sometimes questioning my sanity of having spent so many hours playing chess online. It's an addiction ;)
Danya seemed like a great person. Someone you'd want to hang out with. A great chess player for sure. I heard the news earlier and was filled with sadness. Such a loss.
You might not ever get titled, but a 1400 online is very much good enough to join your national chess federation and be middle of the pack competitive in local rated chess tournaments and the like.
I feel weird doing a 'well actually' in a post about something so serious and sad, but it might be worth pointing this out to prevent someone from getting the wrong idea about their chess strength: the meaning of '1400 online' varies greatly depending on the site and the time control. According to https://chessgoals.com/rating-comparison/, Chesscom blitz 500 = Lichess classical 1400, and chesscom blitz 1400 = lichess rapid 1880. (I don't know how accurate that site is, but the general point is definitely true; AFAIK Lichess and Chesscom use different rating systems with different means, and within each site the strength of the player pool varies across the time controls.)
Lichess defaults starting rating to 1400 I think so it's about -200 less than chess.com, which defaults to 1200.
Also the player pool for the latter is much larger. Not sure if that has an impact on elo which is basically normalized across playerbase
Well, it is lichess and online (as I'm sure you're aware) is a very different kettle of fish than OTB.
But thank you for your kindness.
Regarding the flagged/dead comment that links to concern about Daniel Naroditsky's health a few days ago, I don't think burrying our heads in the sand is correct approach now.
It might have been wise to respect his privacy and not talk about him publicly and while he was alive and could read it, but now that posting it cannot affect his mental health, perhaps mental health awareness is important to talk about.
(A side note, I still think the privacy of those who pass away is important, but I think talking about mental health is also important.)
Could have been an adverse reaction to Benadryl or his sleep disturbances could have been a warning sign.
"BeccaHarris: I took a Benadryl to make sure I got 8+ hours of sleep, it hit me a lot faster and harder than expected. before I knew it 15+ mins had passed and I nodded off a few times, and suddenly poeople were freaking ou"
https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/1obo71s/comment/nkhb...
https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2017/06/sleep-disturb...
I suggest we stop speculating about the cause of death and instead wait for an official announcement to be made. Please respect the family at this time.
I get respecting the family while grieving but let’s be real here, is anyone from the family realistically going to even find let alone care about random strangers speculating on a random internet platform that isn’t even related to chess?
The chance of this even reaching them is infinitesimally small. We’re not standing around talking about it with them in the room, we shouldn’t be pretending like we are.
Its definitely normal to wonder "what happened?"
Even if not, we're all better off if we behave with respect and humanity.
This just feels like gatekeeping discussion at this point.
The concern is more about speculation specifically. Internet armchair-investigations regularly get out of control and fills discussion with what reliably later turns out to be misinformation, in addition to being disrespectful at sensitive time.
Low quality blogs and "news" reporters also directly pull from online discussions, and before you know it, hypothetical drug use is a major discussion point, which is unfortunate.
I have seen people that I would have never expected to have heard about HN, show up here. The odds that someone tells the family to come look may not be that high. But they are very far from zero.
Most other internet forums that I've been on I would not say this about.
[flagged]
Just watched his last stream that people were talking about on reddit, and his behavior was definitely strange. Saying random stuff then nodding off halfway, and being aggravated to put it simply.
Morbid curiosity is maybe natural but I think it's bad form for a bunch of online speculation into cause of death by armchair researchers. He's a real person and his family and friends are real people and they deserve freedom from that kind of speculation running wild across the Internet. There's no benefit for anyone, it's just curiosity that shouldn't be engaged in.
I would prefer you refer to it as "courtesy" or "consideration" rather than "freedom".
its not mórbid wanting to know if a Young person commited suicide
morbid curiosity literally curiosity about disease and death
I'm not sure what you think "morbid" means.
"Morbid" indicates that the curiosity about disease and death is unhealthy.
Describing a university course on infectious disease as "morbid" would be incorrect.
Danya was such an incredibly positive influence on the chess community, a tremendous teacher whose YouTube content I’m sure will remain popular for years to come, and my personal favorite chess commentator.
He was also only 29 years old.
I’m actually in tears right now struggling how to break this news to my son, who absolutely loved Danya and had a chance to play him OTB last year.
Really devastating. He was my favorite chess streamer and such a genuine person. I remember distinctly every time his opponent was suspected of cheating he was adamant in giving them the benefit of the doubt.
No matter what we find out in the next few days, I wish authorities had taken Kramnik’s cyber bullying more seriously. It’s a stain on chess that this is allowed to continue.
To take the conversation in a more technical direction, there are pretty clear parallels with “AI detector” technology which also could be (and I’m sure has been) life ruining. For both writing and chess, there are no authenticity detectors, only circumstantial evidence.
Yes, Kramnik’s BS was a large stressor on Danya and just a damn shame. Today is a dark day.
Kramnik frankly has proven himself to be a POS. Even outside of this context. He's been baselessly accusing everyone of cheating for years.
Kramnik should be held accountable for making Danya's life hell the past year. Not blaming him for what has happened but this bullying has to stop. It was clear to me and many others that he started attacking Danya because he was a "Russian boy" who did not defend him when Hikaru mocked Kramnik. I'm really upset now so maybe not making much sense.
If you're not blaming him, then you shouldn't hold him accountable.
Kramnik has accused of online cheating virtually every grandmaster bar some of the top 10 and none in the community gives Kramnik much weight on this topic.
I'm sure he said bad things about Danya, and even now he's protecting himself when he should be just sorry for what terrible thing has happened, but generally Danya was more liked than Kramnik, so he can't be responsible / accountable for something he doesn't have power over (Danya's life).
If you are famous, you will have haters, it's part of the deal.
I agree with the crowd who say that mental health issues should be taken seriously instead of kept under the rug.
Trying not to sound too cold, he seemed like a very nice guy and i did not know him. It was not surprising for me. I remember seeing interview with him when he took things very personal and could not let things go some year back. Thought at that time that he was at high risk of suicide. He seemed to have a self loathing personality / depression and obsessive behaviors.
Staying on the Internet and be dependent on it in some way financially working as a streamer with all the short form communication and negativity online. Together with cyber bullies etc. A lot of things creating a perfect storm for what seemed to be a sensitive and very nice guy. Easy to say that his family and real life friends should have seen it too and make him change path but in reality it is difficult. Especially since things that make it worse like sitting down and playing chess all day / night and not getting enough sleep, together with cyber bullies is also the things that you love, you earn money on and you have many of your friends there.
I asked Perplexity what people are speculating online might have been the cause of his death, and it mostly appears to revolve around mental health issues, substance abuse & self harm. Whether or not it's true, this is a tragic loss. Smart & talented people can often be very sensitive.
https://www.perplexity.ai/search/what-is-the-speculation-onl...
Having struggled with these same issues for most of my adult life I'll just say it's nothing to be ashamed of and if you or someone you care about is in pain or struggling, don't hesitate to reach out. There are resources out there for you and it doesn't make you weak for using them.
US: 988 Lifeline https://988lifeline.org/
US, Canada, UK & Ireland: Crisis Text Line https://www.crisistextline.org/
Worldwide list of resources: https://findahelpline.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicide_crisis_lines
It's heartbreaking and sad. His video a couple of days back was literally titled "You thought I was gone! Speedrun retruns"
The comments on that video was so kind and heartwarming where people wished him well.
While we don't know the exact cause, we can all agree that he was subjected to extreme bullying and no one stood up for him - most importantly FIDE!
Kramnick.
From what I understand, Kramnick pointed out Danya's behaviour was erratic and suspected alcohol or drug use (everyone else broached it much more sensitively, saying drugs was a ridiculous notion, and giving him space/privacy but perhaps suspecting possible mental health, mental breakdown, or maybe narcolepsy).
Kramnick may have been forthright and lacking tact, but it was clear from Danya's behaviours that he sadly had an underlying psychological condition that could happen to any of us.
Kramnick repeatedly accused Danya of cheating, which prompted a lot of ongoing abuse from his acolytes. Danya spoke publicly about the stress this caused him several times.
Of course, as ever, Kramnick had nothing to back up his claims, a fact which in no way prevented him repeating them ad-nauseum.
That's not being "forthright" or "lacking tact". That's being an abusive asshole.
I hadn't follow closely enough and wasn't aware - thanks for pointing out.
Kramnick accuses Danya of cheating (several pieces of circumstantial 'evidence' in the thread): https://x.com/VBkramnik/status/1911179469773033512
A tweet by IM Kostya Kavutskiy of ChessDojo from November 2024 (paraphrased):
> Our intention was to express concern for what's going on. Many of us supported Kramnik's fight against online cheating for some time.
> But then he started naming players left & right, some of whom were likely 100% innocent, who got their name dragged through the mud regardless. Kramnik also started naming actual children at one point, without any real evidence from what I could tell
> And it's not "just asking questions", it's casting aspersions. And the words of any world champion obviously carry a lot of responsibility.
https://x.com/hellokostya/status/1852388806143390131
This whole cheating kerfuffle would have never happened if people would have switched to games or variations of games that are not beaten by computers.
This has been discussed to death but to reiterate here: people have been much too polite about Kramnick's nonsense. Danya and Hikaru are (were) probably the two people in the world whose bullet play is least suspicious. Cheating isn't very powerful in short time controls, and they have streamed thousands of games playing them.
Kramnick's bullshit never made any damn sense at all.
Well, i feel a bit reluctant about sharing this, because it is so sad, but the following was recorded not long ago ... wouldn't be surprised if they took it down
https://youtu.be/6_anRV5ZFWY?si=csobK4NBKKT-tE8H
A sad day for chess and chess fans around the world. I smiled when I saw this news posted here - Danya would have loved being among the nerds (I always saw him as one). I will never forget the final game, game 14 of WC2024 between Ding and Gukesh commentated by Peter Leko and Daniel. His reaction[1] at 4:18:40, when Ding blundered with Rf2 is priceless. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqA9mvyI0j4
Danya's death hit hard. He was a kind soul that was always generous with his time who loved playing, teaching and commentating chess and was easily one of the nicest GMs in chess.
I was an avid watcher of his Stream while he was regular streamer and commentator (amongst the best in the world), unfortunately saw the effect of his once idol Kramnik's accusations had on him, having to constantly prove himself, even in is his last stream [1], playing beyond exhaustion to the point his friends had to get him to physically switch off his stream, but he didn't want to because he was worried that if he had good results off stream that people would raise questions.
Kramnik was an ex World Champion, became unhinged and started indiscriminately accusing many GMs who beat him in short time controls of cheating, absurd claims made from his bedroom watching streams playing detective, where he accused #2 GM Hikaru that he had access to an evaluation bar which his editors added on his games he reviews before publishing them to YouTube [2]. In addition to torturing Danya with accusations for a year he also drove GM David Navara to depression [3] who he is currently trying to sue for defamation.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbk-mvBmLUM
[2] https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/1dtlvcb/kramnik_beli...
[3] https://www.chess.com/blog/FormerProdigy/because-we-care
I was wondering why I knew his name - he published a series of chess puzzles based on actual historic games in the NYT: https://www.nytimes.com/spotlight/chess-puzzles.
They were fabulous, and I especially enjoyed his commentary. May he rest in peace.
Even my local Swedish newspaper paid him respects. It may feel a bit better knowing that somewhere half way across the world, people knew him and considered him a celebrity.
Link to the tribute mentioned?
Danya was like the Mr. Rogers of chess. He had a way of making you feel accepted into the chess community even if you were a beginner, and was such a clear thinker. I strive to be more like him, and am devastated by this loss.
I am deeply saddened by Danya's passing. I'm not a massive chess player, but I regard him as one of the top 10 most awe inspiring individuals I've had the pleasure of witnessing through his YT channel. I was genuinely awed and impressed by the guy. As deeply as I am saddened, I am also angered by the context within which he has passed. Extremely angry. So extremely angry.
Literally yesterday my toddler son came into the room, saw me watching his last video - "You thought I was gone?! Speedrun returns!" - and asked me who that is.
I told him his name is Danya and he teaches people how to play a game.
</3
Ouch. Danya was a great player (world rank 151, USA rank 17). Popular player, teacher, streamer and chess event commentator. Studied at Stanford. The NY Times' current chess columnist. About to turn 30 years old.
I'm absolutely saddened by this news. I'm not good at chess, if anything I'm pretty horrible at it, but I love reading and watching videos about it.
Danya's videos were amazing, and provided so much insight into this thought process and chess.
I think all chess fans can recall Ivanchuk's recent mortifying defeat at Naroditsky's lightning-quick hands at World Blitz. Just goes to show no matter how devastating the loss, someone, perhaps even your vanquisher, is having an even harder time.
Reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_evi2X-PY0c
I cried at the end too.
I thought nothing could shock me this year, but Danya's death has shaken me to my core.
I think we all need to see this right now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opdegV4nwTM
This makes me so tremendously sad. Danya was one of the biggest blessings to the online chess community.
RIP the great RebeccaHarris :(
Super out of the blue. I loved his videos and he taught me a lot after I got into chess during covid.
rest in peace.
Really good teacher, helped me go from 800 to 1600 in under a year. Used to watch his speedruns a lot.
https://www.youtube.com/@DanielNaroditskyGM
This is shocking, I have no words. The poor guy.
That is heartbreaking.
He was so incredibly kind and an amazing teacher.
Apparently he did a stream where he looked pretty bad. It's too late to help Danya but if you ever see a friend in a bad place hopefully this reminds you to take action.
Chess.com coverage at https://www.chess.com/news/view/grandmaster-daniel-naroditsk...
ChessBase coverage at https://en.chessbase.com/post/daniel-naroditsky-1995-2
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Naroditsky
I'm heartbroken. It's been a few years since I met him in person but loved watching him on his streams. He was such a ray of light beloved by all. Like others I noted with alarm his appearance and strange behavior the past few months. Hope his family finds peace.
I can't believe this. Yesterday I saw his last educational speedrun[0]. He was such a great positive dude and I really enjoyed his content.
He will be missed!
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rqPeGKVPbA&t=1834s
I would love to donate some to his family if anybody has a link to share.
Are you sure? I think the statement said he was a son.
You are right, sorry about that. I can't read today. I deleted that part.
He was my favorite chess player to watch online. It’s been a few years since I watched a lot of chess, but he was the best. RIP
I've watched so many of his videos..He always seemed like a great guys, and so brilliant. He also always seemed like he had a deep sadness about him. That has always been my impression, but of course just a personal impression. I don't know the cause of his death, but, of course I wonder.
This is terrible news if true; so young and such a positive voice and influence.
One of the best live commentators, and among a generation of savvy chess influencers he seemed particularly sincere and without motivation beyond love of the game and communicating it's brilliance to others.
RIP GM Danya
> "if true"
To swiftly terminate that thread, it is not a hoax; his North Carolina friend Oleksandr Bortnyk confirmed it on his video stream.
The bullying by the clearly deranged Kramnik has got to stop. Someone needs to take away his internet access and get him professional help.
Rip danya
There's huge pink elephant that I think many aren't aware of here.
A former chess world champion, Vladimir Kramnik, has turned into a sort of self satire seeking out cheaters in online chess. Basically everybody is cheating according to him, he even implied Hikaru Nakamura, the 2nd strongest player in the world, could be cheating.
Eventually his sights fell on Danya. At first I thought they were both kind of playing it up as a sort of a joke. For instance after the accusations Danya did a video where he had something absurd like a dozen different cameras watching him play from different angles. And in response Kramnik mentioned some petty absurdity that I can't even recall at this point - maybe there was a laptop on a chair or something? 'What is that computer Danya, suspicious, him?' And this sort of nonsense continued on for some time.
I still think Kramnik is doing it as a half-serious joke, but Danya clearly took it very seriously. He believed that his reputation had been ruined (even though just most people think Kramnik is the one who has mostly destroyed his own reputation and mostly just seen as a bit 'kooky' now a days) and Danya became a dramatically different person over about 2 years.
Previously he was kind of a happy go lucky blitz obsessed guy. But he gradually became increasingly morose and insecure. He also seemed to be losing weight, though I have no idea if that is accurate - I'm basing it solely on outside appearances which can be misleading. In any case, this was almost certainly related, and it makes the whole situation far darker.
We don’t even know yet how he died, isn’t it a bit early to pin it on someone?
Sure, but all the same, given what you've said, isn't it a bit weird that Kramnik himself has rushed to raise drug taking suspicions? Is he trying to divert attention? Regardless of whether he has anything to do with this, it would have been classy of him to stay quiet for a while about this
I guess, I’m not particularly a fan of JAQing off regardless of if I have a distaste for the person in question.
[dead]
It's not pinning anything on anybody. It's explaining the context to the probably 99% of people who have no idea what was going on here. Obviously this news was a shock to everybody, but it's also a case where you can kind of immediately understand why. Everybody could see he was fading before our eyes, but nobody realized quite how serious it was.
I can't imagine how awful his friend and boss feel right now. He was behaving extremely erratically on his final stream to the point that they dropped by at 1am (granted that's more like 3pm in typical chess player time) to try to get him to stop playing, calm down, and just go to bed. They're obviously going to be asking themselves if they could have done more. The same is even true of Hikaru who recounted his last conversation with Danya, which was again about trying to help him up, and he teared up while again wondering if he could have done more.
And the catalyst for his decline was the cheating accusations. Yet the one 'mitigating' thing for Kramnik is that Danya really fell out of touch with reality with regards to the accusations. He made it clear that he felt many, if not most, people felt he was cheating. But in reality, basically nobody did. Kramnik has become basically a meme to the point that his accusations hold about as much weight as being called a naughty name online.
Of course from Danya's perspective it was going to be much more painful because he mentioned that Kramnik was one of his chess idols growing up. And people don't understand the amount of work it takes to become very good at chess. To then have one of your idols turn around and claim you're cheating, which is essentially pissing on all your work, is going to sting. And Danya had an immense, substantially more than average, amount of reverence for the title of world champion, which he felt that was causing people to believe Kramnik.
He felt the world was turning against him, but it simply wasn't. And the catalyst for this change was the accusations.
These are things you know? Or this is what you imagine might have happened and what he might have been thinking? For me it makes quite a big difference on how seriously to take you, if you actually know him or not (not in a parasocial way).
This is not hypothetical. He made his views on the topic completely clear, repeatedly. The entire accusations had essentially started to become a major part of who he was and he endlessly focused on them. He also mentioned what I said about them coming from Kramnik and how that was particularly hurtful for him.
Where? I watched his videos and I never saw him say anything like what you’ve written.
On his Twitch streams this issue was constantly brought up. While the frequency of discussion was obviously highest around the time of the accusations, it was brought up in basically every single stream, all alongside the very visible decline of his overall 'wellness' over the past ~2 years.
This [1] is from his final stream, and it's clear he was already at the breaking point. I feel most awful for his friend Bortnyk (one of the two voices you hear in the background there essentially having an intervention), he's going to be beating himself up thinking he could have done more, for years to come.
Everybody could see Danya deteriorating, but somehow I think nobody really realized just how 'real' it was. Magnus, who also regularly followed Danya's streams, has mentioned that he somewhat regrets not coming out publicly in defense of him. Probably in part because his views on cheating were already somewhat tainted at this point, and probably in part because nobody wanted to be the next person Kramnik started going after.
[1] - https://youtu.be/112JImX_cWM?t=8071
If you've been following the drama, his involvement is obvious at this point.
It read that as useful context overall, not that parent was trying to pin it on/blame someone. Without
Indeed, he also quit commenting, which he was really good at and seemed to enjoy doing in the past
So Kramnik likes to engage in mobbing? What does the community say about this?
The chess community is generally against it, though they're also laughing at Kramnik for his absurd his behaviour is. I'd be surprised if Kramnik's behaviour is a major contributing factor (given we don't know anything about Danya's cause of death), but if it is, I would hope he finds himself shunned from the community at a minimum.
As it is, he's already behaved in awful ways: accusing children of cheating without evidence, for example, and effectively doxxing them.
It’s internet drama, surely counter (and counter-counter)-mobs are already forming. The fans do this regardless of the wishes of the influencer.
He had a very bad time at Freestyle a while ago and he quit that if I remember correctly. These things could be many reasons, internal and external. Stop accusing Kramnik, everyone knows he throws around cheating accusations at anything that moves.
so another victim of the algorithm? social media promotes this type of bullying behavior as advertisers are Happy to put their ads in harasing videos as long they dont say certain words. Ridiculous. Its sad that platforms themselves are above the law, of course in the TOS they promise democracy but its a lie and they give us Roman colloseum as its what sells the most
I'm shocked, he was a great teacher and seemed like the nicest dude of all the chess streamers out there.
https://www.youtube.com/@DanielNaroditskyGM/videos
https://www.twitch.tv/gmnaroditsky
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/12/crosswords/chess-columnis...
He was such a great teacher and player. Absolutely loved his videos. He seemed like such a wholesome positive person, this is very sad.
Several years ago he taught kids locally in the Bay Area. Very sad to see someone go that's so young.
Oh no, that's really awful. Danya was such a wonderful chess communicator.
I've seen people trying to blame Kramnik for this, with his cheating accusations and all. I think Kramnik is a jerk like everyone else, but it still seems crazy to point the finger at him. We could find out tomorrow that Naroditsky died of a random stroke. We just have no idea at this point.
I will just say it out loud. Kramnik bullied him to death. And no, I won't "define bullying".
Love you Danya. You were one of a kind. See you in due time <3
If life could be measured in potential moves considered, he lived several lifetimes. Sad to see such a force of nature expire so soon. Condolences to the Russian chick and their kid.
> Condolences to the Russian chick and their kid.
The statement from CCC doesn’t mention him having a kid. Pretty sure he did not have one.
RIP Danya <3
Shocking to hear this news. I used to watch Danya's videos a lot... RIP
RIP
Horrible news, he wasn't even 30 years old.
There's something oddly devastating about seeing people pass away in these online communities. I've never been one to really be affected by celebrities passing away, but I remember a few years when Geoff Robinson died (who was active in the Starcraft scene) that one hit me surprisingly badly as well.
Obviously it's banal in a sense because you always know people can die, but there's something very weird about seeing someone livestream one day and then you just get a headline like this on the next.
holy shit.
there’s an interesting (but not necessarily causual in either direction) link between chess and depression https://www.chess.com/blog/AstroTheoretical_Physics/chess-pl...
either how, RIP
Also: Daniel was being accused of cheating by Kramnik and visibly affected by it. I think there's a link between bullying and suicide isn't there?
One can only hope that Kramnik is held accountable for his abusive behavior that - at the very least - had contributing factors (to put it gently) to Danya's death.
Isn't there a link between high intelligence and depression as well?
is being good at chess a proof of human intelligence?
I think there's some correlation but no, you can be amazingly strong at chess and not super-intelligent by other measures, or be incredibly good at physics or philosophy or poetry or whatever and have no talent for chess.
But, having watched some of Naroditsky's videos, it seems pretty clear that he was in fact very intelligent as well as very good at chess.
Maybe, exactly what are you asking? What even is intelligence - that is a question I've never seen formally answered (and even if someone does, their definition may not match your intuitive feel for what it means and thus it is useless outside of the exact paper they defined it in)
Formal definitions aside, it isn't possible for "stupid" people to be good at chess. There also is no other animal or known alien that is good at chess. Thus being good at chess is a strong sign of an intelligent human.
We can't go the other way. There are plenty of humans generally known to be "intelligent" who are not good at chess. There is a lot more than intelligence needed to be good at chess (practice and study come to mind, there might be more).
While there are no known aliens that are good at chess, that doesn't preclude that we may discover them in the future. (not in your lifetime though - the speed of light is too slow for them to learn the rules of our chess and communicate back proof that they are good, no matter how intelligent they are)
Being good at most things is correlated with intelligence, including activities like music: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6682658/
I think Hikaru’s fans made him take an IQ or intelligence test a couple of years ago and it showed he wasn’t exactly a mastermind. He said at the time something along the lines that being good at chess shows you are intelligent only in that one domain of chess-type thinking, not general intelligence.
I remember something related to that, but wasn't he trolling the complete thing?
I suppose he could be charactarized as the xQc of Chess, perhaps?
It definitely is, considering "good" to be a top 10 blitz player like Naroditsky was.
Not proof (if there is any such thing for intelligence) but a very strong indicator, yes.
I'd say the opposite. Every time a guy crushes me, I flip the board over and call him a fuckwit.
Not that long ago I would have said no, but I increasingly think that intelligence is mostly about the ability to learn. And chess, at a high level, requires a mixture of achieving an extremely high degree of unconscious competence working right alongside a high degree of conscious competence for things like opening prep. And most, if not all, high level chess players that have tried, in earnest, to do things outside of chess have excelled across a wide variety of fields.
But I think where people get confused is in the inverse. If you take a very smart person and he dedicates two years of his life to chess, all alongside training from some of the world's best, then he's still going to be, at best, a strong amateur at the end. In fact I know at least one instance where this exact experiment was tried. This is generally unlike other fields where such an effort would generally put you well into the realm of mastery.
But that's the unconscious competence part - chess takes many years of very serious training to even start to have it become 'natural' for you, and it's that point that your training journey begins all over again because suddenly things like opening preparation starts to become critical. So it can give the appearance that since seemingly smart people don't do particularly well at chess, while people like Magnus who has/had (daddyhood changes a lot...) a complete 'bro' personality, is arguably the strongest player of all time, it gives the impression that being smart must not be a prerequisite for success at chess.
[dead]
The education system bored me a lot and made an effort to portray me as some kind of mentally disabled retard. It was rather interesting to me that successful career grown ups couldn't win a single game.
I wasn't interested in chess but I could see their entire plan unfold on the board. Unless they were actually good I didn't even try to win, in stead I let them unfold their plan into their own demise.
My winning streak ended when I got to play against the best kid from a different school. His was the biggest brain I have ever seen from the inside. He pretty much violated basic principles of the game in a way that still bothers me 35 years later.
The game was much to open to really look far ahead. The way one would play against a computer. His actual goal was to trade his knights and bishops for two pawns each!?!?! He pulled off 3 such trades. He carefully set up the trades and it made no fkn sense.
Then came a really long and slow pawn push that didn't allow me to trade my knights and bishops for more than a single pawn.
It took so many moves that he pretty much convinced me that 2 bishops and a knight are worth less than 5 points. I haven't seen a second game like it but I'm still 100% convinced.
If we define it as such (which it seems we have in some way) then yes.
The ability to plan and operate several moves ahead of one’s opponent has always suggested higher intelligence.
When applied to war we celebrate the general’s brilliance. When applied to economics we say they had excellent foresight. When applied to any human endeavor, except chess, the accomplishment is celebrated as a human achievement.
This is due to humans placing great value upon thinking and planning ahead. Only the intelligent exhibit this behavior.
nothing is, we're all stupid, thanks for the reminder
I like turtles
Intelligence has been defined in many ways: the capacity for abstraction, logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving. It can be described as the ability to perceive or infer information and to retain it as knowledge to be applied to adaptive behaviors within an environment or context.
(from Wikipedia)
Intelligence is multifactoral. Being good at chess was one aspect of intelligence in the complexity of Daniel's life, and in anyone's life.
Intelligence presents in different way, but they’re all correlated with each other. The idea that people can be intelligent in different things is mostly a myth: https://researched.org.uk/2018/09/26/myth-busting-gardners-m...
From that artcile:
"'Even in our book, we don’t want to call this theory a complete myth, but instead label it as ‘nuanced’."
But read the next two sentences:
> Why? Well, the basic idea behind this theory is that people are different, and maybe you’ve noticed – they really are. People have different interests, different abilities, different moods, etc.
The author isn’t saying that the multiple-intelligence theory is itself valid. Rather, in an educational context, there is a kernel of value in the idea that different students are different. That’s entirely consistent with intelligence being a single thing.
yes, it's a proof of human intelligence at chess. nothing more.
One aspect is that highly intelligent people have a hard time asking for help as they are used to always having the answers. It's entirely foreign to them.
No[1]. It is a common misconception that puts more stigma on people with mental illness. My family called my schizoaffective disorder a "gift" because I was creative and intelligent. This lead them to ignore my suffering, which made me more depressed.
[1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9879926/
When a rate of 8% of the US population reporting having a major depressive episode in their lives, there appears to be a correlation between depression and life unfortunately:
https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/major-depression
Life in the fallen world is indeed dark, and certainly was darker a mere few generations ago. The difference is we have lost the frameworks generations past used for dealing with major depressive episodes, and have opted for more "enlightened" approaches that are clearly working /s
There is a correlation between IQ and depression: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016028961...
No no no no there is no link. This a fantasy created by the romantics.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9879926/
Playing competitive chess may trigger depression because of the constant comparison of people better than you.
He was such a great guy. Wholesome. What a loss.
What the fuck
-deleted- might be fake news
>He was getting ready to stream when he felt uneasiness and nausea causing him to collapse.
How could anyone possibly know this?
I'm not seeing anything on Dubov's Facebook page since April 9th. Can you provide a link?
I am going to delete this in 5min because I also can't find any public sources about this.
Can you provide the original (facebook) source? Because I can't even find that.
[flagged]