Timeline of Daniel Naroditsky's feud with Vladimir Kramnik: OTB games after cheating allegations

Since Vladimir Kramnik's accusations in October 2024, Daniel Naroditsky has won 13 OTB games, and drawn eight. Meanwhile, he has lost only five OTB games.

Daniel Naroditsky's sudden death on Sunday (October 19) at the age of 29 came as a shock to chess players and fans. Naroditsky was less than a month short of his 30th birthday. According to reports, he was found unconscious at his residence in North Carolina's Mecklenburg County before being pronounced dead. Charlotte Chess Center's founder Peter Giannatos and GM Oleksandr Bortnyk found him lying unconscious on a couch at his residence.

Vladimir Kramnik accused Daniel Naroditsky of cheating in online chess.(FIDE)

When did Vladimir Kramnik's cheating allegations begin?

Many chess players took to social media to reveal their shock and also slammed ex-World Champion Vladimir Kramnik for his feud with Naroditsky. From October 2024, Kramnik repeatedly accused the American GM, for over a year, of cheating in online chess, without substantial evidence. Naroditsky rejected Kramnik's allegations and also revealed that it took a tremendous toll on his mental health.

Did Daniel Naroditsky receive support?

Naroditsky did receive support from the likes of Hikaru Nakamura, and after his death, Wesley So also took to X to claim that he never believed Kramnik's accusations. Meanwhile, Arjun Erigaisi and Nihal Sarin also took to X and slammed Kramnik.

Tremendous toll on mental health

On a podcast held by Fabiano Caruana and Cristian Chirila in 2024, Naroditsky openly claimed the toll of Kramnik's accusations on his mental health. He called it "a sustained, evil, and absolutely unhinged attempt to destroy" his life. He added, "He is trying to ruin my life; he's trying to inflict emotional harm, physical harm on me. He knows exactly what he's doing."

In his last stream on October 17, Naroditsky appeared distressed. Since Kramnik's accusations, Naroditsky has only taken part in the World Rapid and Blitz C'ship 2024, in terms of over-the-board.

Kramnik used arguments like a statistical study of where the American GM looked when he was playing online games, hinting that he was using a chess engine that calculated millions of moves per second to predict the best. Naroditsky even had to provide a variety of arguments to prove his innocence. In his last live stream, Naroditsky fell asleep while playing, and also discussed Kramnik's accusations. In response, Kramnik tweeted, "Typical nowadays [in the] world of chess, the only thing everyone cares about is ‘looking great’ and pretending there are no issues. Even if it’s about long-term major problems. Stop this double-faced hypocrisy for once and try to help solve them. Image isn’t everything."

The next, he tweeted again, "Got the stream episodes. Not a doctor but looks like something ‘very else’ than sleeping pills. Hope, if any, real friends of him will care."

Vladimir Kramnik on Daniel Naroditsky's death

After the American GM's sudden death, he wrote, "Too high price paid, but if I was the only person shouting about obvious long term problems of Danya [Naroditsky’s nickname] becoming alarming, requiring urgent measures from people, while ‘friends’ only cared about hiding it and erase evidence [referring to the removal of videos on Twitch], its rotten to the core."

Here is the full list of his OTB games since Kramnik's accusations:

World Rapid C'ship 2024-

Daniel Naroditsky 1-0 A M Tsaruk

A Woodward 0-1 Daniel Naroditsky

Daniel Naroditsky 1/2-1/2 T Adewumi

Daniel Naroditsky 1-0 B Jacobson

A Grebnev 0-1 Daniel Naroditsky

Daniel Naroditsky 1/2-1/2 J Sindarov

S Sargsyan 1/2-1/2 Daniel Naroditsky

J Duda 1-0 Daniel Naroditsky

Daniel Naroditsky 1-0 N Abdusattorov

A Giri 1/2-1/2 Daniel Naroditsky

Daniel Naroditsky 0-1 R Praggnanandhaa

Daniel Naroditsky 0-1 M Muradli

X Bu 1/2-1/2 Daniel Naroditsky

World Blitz C'ship 2024-

V Ivanchuk 0-1 Daniel Naroditsky

A Woodward 0-1 Daniel Naroditsky

B Gelfand 1-0 Daniel Naroditsky

B Bok 1/2-1/2 Daniel Naroditsky

J Bjerre 0-1 Daniel Naroditsky

V Akobian 0-1 Daniel Naroditsky

Daniel Naroditsky 1/2-1/2 E Amar

Daniel Naroditsky 0-1 J Vakhidov

Daniel Naroditsky 1-0 Dominguez Perez

Daniel Naroditsky 1-0 M Antipov

Daniel Naroditsky 1-0 L Fressinet

Daniel Naroditsky 1-0 V Durarbayli

Wesley So 1/2-1/2 Daniel Naroditsky

WON - 13

Lost - 5

DRAW - 8

Since Kramnik's accusations in October 2024, Naroditsky has won 13 OTB games, and drawn eight. Meanwhile, he has lost only five OTB games. All of his OTB games came at the World Rapid and Blitz C'ship 2024.

Naroditsky tied for first place in the Swiss portion of the 2024 World Blitz C'ship, with a score of 9 1/2/13 and a performance rating of 2749, coming ninth on tie tiebreaks but failing to enter the eight-player knockout stage. At the time of his death, his FIDE blitz rating was 2705. In August 2025, he won the US National Blitz C'ship.