Daniel Naroditsky’s friend says cheating allegations caused ‘immeasurable emotional pain’

Friends of chess grandmaster Daniel Naroditsky have spoken out about cheating accusations against the star in the year before his death.

On October 20, Naroditsky, 29, was found unresponsive at his home in Charlotte, North Carolina, by his friend and co-worker Peter Giannatos, who was performing a well-being check after not being heard from for approximately 24 hours. Naroditsky was later pronounced dead by authorities, and police are investigating his death as a possible suicide or drug overdose, according to an incident report obtained by PEOPLE.

Naroditsky was a world-renowned chess player who maintained a large online following on YouTube and Twitch for his chess explanations and instructional videos. Last year, he was also publicly accused by Russian grandmaster Vladimir Kramnik of cheating while playing online games, which clearly took a toll on Naroditsky in the final months of his life.

“It’s hard to equate what someone says with a dying person,” Giannatos told The Washington Post. “What I can say is that Kramnik’s accusations caused Daniel immense emotional distress over a long period of time from which he could not easily recover.”

In Naroditsky’s last livestream, which has since been deleted, the newspaper said he appeared sleepy when a friend off camera said, “Daniel, you better get off.”

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“I feel like when I start doing well, people assume the worst intentions,” he replied. “you know what i mean?”

Giannatos told the Post that even after logging off from his last stream, he stayed up with friends until the early hours of the next morning, telling them how much the cheating accusations were weighing on him.

On October 22, the International Chess Federation (FIDE) announced that it was investigating Kramnik’s “public statements” made “before and after his death,” and a Change.org petition calling for FIDE to ban Kramnik has since garnered more than 50,000 signatures.

In a statement on October 25, Kramnik denied that he had “ever made any personal attacks or insults against Daniel Naroditsky” and said he was ready to cooperate with any criminal investigation into his death.

“Very unfortunately, this tragic event became an opportunity for some people to exploit it for their own benefit and launch an unprecedented, cynical and illegal campaign of harassment against me and my family,” Kramnik wrote.

Kramnik’s attorney did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.

Naroditsky was born and raised in the Bay Area and first learned chess at the age of six. In 2007, he won the under-12 section of the World Youth Chess Championships and hasn’t slowed down since then.

He won the U.S. Junior Championship in 2013, earned the Grandmaster title, continued to compete regularly at the U.S. Chess Championships, and remained the top-ranked player in the world until his death. He has also written two books, Mastering Positional Chess in 2010 and Mastering Complex Endgames in 2014, and has been an occasional chess columnist for the New York Times since 2022.

On October 17, the chess star admitted that he had taken a short hiatus from posting to his YouTube channel.

“You thought I was gone forever, but little do you know, I’m actually back and better than ever,” he told viewers in what would be his final video on the platform. “I know there aren’t many episodes. I’m taking some kind of creative break and determining the direction of future content. I’m not going to dig too deep right now because I know everyone is excited about the chess match.”

In the comments of the video, he also liked some positive messages from viewers who were excited about his return to the platform.

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