Chess’s governing body said on Wednesday it was considering disciplinary action against the former Russian world champion who continued to make unproven allegations of cheating in the chess tournament. Daniel Naroditsky The year before the death of the great American professor.
The Charlotte Chess Center in North Carolina, where Naroditsky trained and worked as a coach, was announced His death Monday. He was 29 years old. The cause of death was not announced.
Russian grandmaster Vladimir Kramnik, who held the world title for several years in the early 2000s, began accusing the California-born professional of cheating online. chess Last October. He has continued to share his suspicions on social media over the past year without providing substantive evidence.
Naroditsky, who at 18 became a grandmaster, the highest title in chess except world champion, denied the cheating allegations and accused Kramnik of trying to ruin his life.
Arkady Dvorkovich, president of the FIDE, said on Wednesday that he had formally referred all relevant public statements made by Kramnik before and after Narodetsky’s death to the FIDE’s Ethics and Disciplinary Committee for review. He promised that the federation would take “appropriate action” in any case where public harassment or bullying is observed.
The body requires substantial evidence to initiate a cheating investigation, and may impose sanctions on a player who makes unsubstantiated accusations based on emotion or insufficient data, in accordance with anti-cheat laws. There were no documented reports of the union investigating Naroditsky.
The Associated Press on Wednesday reached out to Kramnik via social media for comment.
The investigation comes as several senior professors, including Hikaru Nakamura and Nihal Sarin, criticized Kramnik’s behaviour, saying the Russian professional harassed Narodetsky and tried to destroy his reputation.
Five-time world chess champion Magnus Carlsen described Kramnik’s continued pursuit of Narodetsky as “appalling.”
During his final live broadcast on Saturday, Naroditsky told his massive online following that Kramnik’s cheating allegations had affected him.
“Since the Kramnik case, I feel like if I start doing good, people assume the worst intentions. The problem is just the residual effect of it,” Naroditsky said, adding that Kramnik was one of his “heroes.”
This is not the first time Kramnik has been accused of harassment. Popular online chess server Chess.com shut down Kramnik’s blog on the site in 2023, saying he used it to spread unsubstantiated claims about “dozens of players.”
The following year, Kramnik posted a list of players on social media titled “Cheat Tuesdays,” which included Czech grandmaster David Navarra. Navarra later shared on his blog that Kramnik’s public accusations led him to consider suicide. Kramnik responded by accusing Navarra of defamation.
In June, the federation responded to the public spat between the players, saying that the way Kramnik presents his arguments “brings a lot of damage to the chess community” and “could be devastating to the career and well-being of some players.” The group invited Kramnik to provide details of his approach and statistical data for formal evaluation.
Kramnik’s anti-cheat campaign exploded as the game shifted online during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Many elite players replaced the physical chess board with a keyboard to continue playing during the lockdown, which led to the increasing popularity of streaming content and fast-paced online gaming in which Narodetsky excelled.
Mental sports players are known to value respectful behavior at the plate. But in the digital arena, a new level of toxicity has arisen, as allegations of cheating become more widespread and more difficult to prove. Gamers now have sophisticated computer schemes at their fingertips that can give them an unfair advantage, and new ways to capitalize on their online success.
In blitz and rapid chess, where players have only minutes to finish intense matches, experts say elite talents often move with speed and accuracy on par with a computer. Naroditsky was among the world’s top 25 Blitz players and won the US National Blitz Championship in August.
“Recently, public discussions in the chess world have often gone beyond acceptable limits, damaging not only people’s reputations but also their well-being,” Dvorkovic admitted on Wednesday. “When this happens, discussions can turn into harassment, bullying, and personal attacks — which is especially dangerous in today’s environment.”
Dvorkovich said that the federation will establish an award in memory of Naroditsky.
Kramnik continued to post about Narodetsky on the day his death was announced, calling it a tragedy and speculating on the cause. Kraminek wrote on the social media platform X that the death “should be investigated by the police.” He wrote on Wednesday that he had received threats after revealing “general information about the ‘dark side’ of modern chess.”