Grandmaster Danya's death exposes cyberbullying threat in online chess

A tragic death recently highlighted the challenges chess faces as it transforms into a digital sport. On October 19, Grandmaster (GM) Daniel “Danya” Naroditsky was found dead at his home outside Charlotte in North Carolina, United States. He had been playing online and viewers were alarmed by his disjointed conversation. Two friends who checked on him found he had passed away.

 

Danya, the son of immigrants from the former Soviet Union, was a few weeks short of his 30th birthday. He was a former World Under-12 champion, a bestselling author, and a very popular coach and streamer with millions of social media followers. He had a rare gift: He could comment coherently while actually playing speed chess.

 

At classical chess with long time controls, Danya’s ranking meandered near the bottom of the World Top 100. He was much stronger at speed chess. He was the reigning US champion at blitz, and placed joint ninth in the 2024 World Blitz Championship.

 

There was an outpouring of grief, and anger as news of the death percolated. Every top player, with one exception, expressed grief. The anger was directed at that one individual. Danya had been cyberbullied for over a year by former World Champion Vladimir Kramnik, who repeatedly accused him of cheating with zero evidence.

 

Danya tried to debate Mr Kramnik on the topic but he just continued hurling accusations. Danya said: “He is trying to inflict emotional harm, physical harm on me.” Many players believe the bullying triggered a breakdown.

 

Danya’s last opponent, GM Nihal Sarin, said: “The relentless, baseless accusations … caused him immense pressure and pain. This has to stop. When respected figures spread unfounded allegations without accountability, real lives are destroyed.”

 

World No 4 Arjun Erigaisi, said, “Isn’t this clip from Danya’s last stream (where he is incoherent) more than good enough to understand how much his mental health was affected by the baseless accusations by Kramnik? The (International Chess Federation) Fide Ethics Commission must step up and prevent Kramnik from playing with the mental health of others.”

 

Other players, such as World No 1 Magnus Carlsen, made similar comments. World No 2 Hikaru Nakamura went so far as to hurl unprintable epithets at Mr Kramnik. There’s an online petition with over 47,000 verified signatures asking Fide to revoke Mr Kramnik’s titles for ethics violations.

 

Mr Kramnik, 50, retired from classical chess in 2019. He attained GM status in the 1980s before Tim Berners-Lee invented HTML. He was a world champion in the early 2000s before online play was a big deal.

 

He has spent the last few years mounting an increasingly unhinged campaign against cheating. Apart from Danya, Mr Kramnik has accused Erigaisi, Sarin, Nakamura, Czech GM David Navara and many others, including several underage prodigies, of cheating.

 

Cheating online involves consulting computers on the sly. It can be detected in many ways. One is statistical analysis, which flags high coincidence in computer suggestions and moves made by cheats. Another is a cheat’s inability to play as well in physical, over-the-board (OTB) games. Thousands of online accounts are terminated every month for cheating.  

 

But Mr Kramnik’s accusations are absurd. They are statistically baseless. His targets are strong players with solid OTB records. He seems to assume anyone who plays well online, especially against him, is a cheat. (Danya beat him several times.) When he loses an online game, he performs what he calls “The Procedure” — blocking the winner and reporting him for cheating. “The procedure” is now a tragicomic chess meme. 

 

Much as a 1960s Test cricketer might find it hard to grasp T20s, Mr Kramnik may have trouble adjusting to the rapid digital evolution of chess. Online chess is now very popular and it’s lucrative. Websites host millions of daily games. Danya’s live-streaming and online coaching may have earned him a couple of million dollars —unthinkable in any previous era.

 

Digital cheating is certainly an issue but it cannot be tackled through cyberbullying that randomly targets innocent people. That just adds another toxic element. It is also especially important to prevent cyberbullying in the chess ecosystem, since thousands of children play online.

 

Fide has now said it will seek to eradicate cyberbullying, although experience tells us this will actually be very hard. Danya helped a lot of people during his all-too-short life. If his death leads to a cleansing of the chess ecosystem, that would help bring some closure to his family and friends.