Daniel Naroditsky's untimely death has come as a shock to the entire chess fraternity, and the reactions are flying in thick and fast. Naroditsky was a chess prodigy who became a Grandmaster at the age of 18. He later became an educator and a New York Times columnist. His death on Sunday was confirmed by a chess academy in Charlotte, North Carolina, where Naroditsky was a head coach. The cause of his death is still unknown.
On social media, the ongoing discourse is that former world champion Vladimir Kramnik’s allegations of cheating had put Naroditsky under extreme stress. The latter vehemently denied the allegations. Now Indian Grandmaster Nihal Sarin has spoken on the issue, blaming Kramnik for putting pressure.
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“He (Kramnik) has kind of literally taken a life,” Sarin, the last player to face Naroditsky on the online chess.com platform, told The Indian Express. The 21-year-old went full throttle against Kramnik. “His (Naroditsky) last games were against me,” said Sarin. “That day, we played a bit in the morning and then there were our last games at night. We were also talking about a few things. He said he was under immense stress due to a lot of baseless accusations; headed by Kramnik, of course.”
Sarin added: “Apparently, unfortunately, quite a few others also seem to have joined in. I can totally imagine the pain he (Naroditsky) was going through, and it has been going on for a very long time. I had thought he was a very strong guy. I didn’t think he would get affected so easily.”
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Sarin, in fact, has gone to the extent of calling for sanctions to be imposed on Kramnik. “Why would somebody like Naroditsky cheat?” the Indian Grandmaster asked. “And that is a question that guys like Kramnik can just very conveniently ignore. I cannot process how messed up some of these minds are. I don’t understand what you get from this? What do you get from ruining anyone’s life? Now, (Kramnik is) almost directly responsible for taking one.”
Sarin went on: “He (Kramnik) is after Czech grandmaster David Navara, (and) Navara is struggling. I am most worried about him right now. I don’t know how to say this, but I sincerely hope that Kramnik gets some big sanctions. I don’t know how, but he really needs to pay for what he is doing to others. Navara is the nicest guy in chess… Since a long time, he has been having some psychological issues and he has even mentioned that these accusations made him feel suicidal. He wrote to FIDE asking for some sanctions against Kramnik and nothing happened.”
So the big question, is Kramnik harming chess?
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