American chess grandmaster Daniel Naroditsky died this week at 29 years old — just two weeks shy of his 30th birthday. His peers remember him as humble despite his immense skill.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
American chess grandmaster and YouTube sensation Daniel Naroditsky died this week at 29 years old. His peers and his rivals remember him as an incredibly skilled and deeply humble player. NPR’s Alana Wise reports.
ALANA WISE, BYLINE: Naroditsky’s club, the Charlotte Chess Center in North Carolina, announced his death on social media. It shocked the chess community, where he made a mark as both a talented player and ambassador of the sport.
SAM SHANKLAND: So Daniel wore many hats for me over the course of his life.
WISE: That was fellow grandmaster Sam Shankland. He described Naroditsky as a little brother to him. They first met when Shankland was 12 and Naroditsky was 7.
SHANKLAND: I remember playing with him when his father had to bring a booster seat ’cause he was too small to see over the board. And then, as he grew up, we became rivals, as we were the two best players in California pretty quickly.
WISE: Naroditsky grew up in the Bay Area and made a name for himself as a child prodigy in the chess world. He achieved the title of grandmaster at just 18 years old. Over the years, Naroditsky picked up additional titles, including chess instructor and streaming sensation, with popular channels on YouTube and Twitch, where he promoted chess content.
SHANKLAND: When it became clear he wasn’t really going to make it to the absolute top of the playing tier, he transitioned and became a great chess content creator who grew the game enormously.
WISE: Shankland said he found out about his friend’s death yesterday before a match at the U.S. Chess Championships in St. Louis.
SHANKLAND: I don’t want to blame that for my loss. I lost because I didn’t play as well as my opponent. But I definitely felt during the game I wasn’t focusing as well ’cause I was thinking a bit about Daniel.
WISE: Shankland said that even though chess was a huge part of Naroditsky’s life, he also made time, sometimes too much, for his second love, basketball. When they played together in Armenia, Naroditsky was so focused on a basketball game, he almost didn’t sleep.
SHANKLAND: And so me and a couple other teammates almost had to stage an intervention ’cause he was watching the finals when – like, in Armenia, at, like, 2 in the morning instead of, like, getting ready for the game. Like, Daniel, you got to go to sleep. You got to play.
WISE: Shankland said he wanted people to remember Naroditsky both for his skill and his kindness to the people around him.
SHANKLAND: Through all of these times, the second hat he wore was he was my friend, and he was a really positive influence on my life in the time that I spent with him.
WISE: Naroditsky was just two weeks shy of his 30th birthday.
Alana Wise, NPR News.
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