Danya

Daniel Aaron "Danya" Naroditsky (November 9, 1995 – October 19, 2025) was an American chess grandmaster (GM), commentator, and content creator. He had a peak FIDE rating of 2647 in classical chess and was regularly ranked in the top 200. He won the under-12 World Youth Championship in 2007 and the under-20 US Junior Championship in 2013. Naroditsky was a specialist in speed chess. In blitz chess, he had a peak rating of 2716 and was ranked in the top 25 in the world. Naroditsky became one of the youngest published authors in chess history at age 14. He earned the GM 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, particularly with his frequent commentary partner Robert Hess. Naroditsky was an endgame columnist for Chess Life, and served as the New York Times chess columnist. He was the resident GM at the Charlotte Chess Center from 2020 until his death in 2025. Late in his career, Naroditsky was one of the main subjects of unsubstantiated accusations of cheating by former world champion Vladimir Kramnik.