Danya
Daniel Aaron "Danya" Naroditsky (November 9, 1995 – October 19, 2025) was an American chess grandmaster, commentator, and content creator. During his career, he was widely considered one of the best speed chess players in the world and was consistently ranked among the top 25 players. His major tournament wins include the 2007 World Youth Championship, the 2013 U.S. Junior Championship, and the 2025 U.S. Blitz Championship. He became one of the youngest published authors in chess history at age 14 and earned the chess grandmaster title at age 17.
Naroditsky participated in the US Chess Championship five times, where he defeated world No. 2 Fabiano Caruana in 2021. One of his biggest achievements was tying for first place in the preliminary stage of the World Blitz Championship in 2024. In online chess, he was a top player in blitz and bullet, having been the No. 1 rated player at times in both formats on Chess.com and Lichess. He regularly finished in the top 3 in both the Chess.com Bullet and Hyperbullet Championships.
Naroditsky was a prominent chess streamer. He was known for his educational content on YouTube and Twitch and was highly regarded as a commentator. Naroditsky was an endgame columnist for Chess Life, and served as the New York Times chess columnist. He was the resident grandmaster at the Charlotte Chess Center from 2020 until his death in 2025.
Late in his career, Naroditsky was one of many prominent chess players who were the target of unsubstantiated cheating accusations by Vladimir Kramnik. Kramnik's allegations were condemned by many other professional chess players and prompted FIDE to open an ethics investigation against him.
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