Former World Chess Champion May Face Discipline For Treatment Of Daniel Naroditsky

Chess’ international governing body said on Wednesday it was considering disciplinary action against a former Russian world champion who persistently made unproven allegations of cheating in chess. Daniel Naroditsky In the year leading up to the death of the American grandmaster.

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 made public.

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. Over the past year, he has continued to share his suspicions on social media without providing any concrete evidence.

Naroditsky, who became a world chess champion as well as a grandmaster at the age of 18, his highest title, denied allegations of cheating and accused Kramnik of trying to ruin his life.

International Chess Federation president Arkady Dvorkovich said on Wednesday that he had officially referred all relevant public statements made by Kramnik before and after Naroditsky’s death to the organization’s Ethics and Disciplinary Commission for review. He promised that the federation would take “appropriate action” whenever harassment or bullying was observed in public.

The organization requires solid evidence to launch a cheating investigation, and under anti-cheating laws, it can sanction a player who makes false accusations based on emotion or insufficient data. There were no documented reports that the Federation investigated Naroditsky.

The Associated Press reached Kramnik via social media Wednesday for comment.

The investigation comes as several grandmasters, including Hikaru Nakamura and Nihal Sarin, have criticized Kramnik’s behavior, saying the Russian professional harassed Naroditsky and tried to discredit him.

Five-time world chess champion Magnus Carlsen described Kramnik’s relentless pursuit of Naroditsky as “terrible”.

In his final live broadcast on Saturday, Naroditsky told his massive online following that Kramnik’s cheating allegations had hurt him.

“Since the events of Kramnik, if I start doing something good, people assume the worst intentions. The problem is just the lasting effect of it,” Naroditsky said, adding that Kramnik was once one of his “heroes”.

This isn’t the first time Kramnik has been accused of harassment. Popular internet chess server Chess.com shut down Kramnik in 2023, saying he used his blog on the site to spread false claims about “many dozens of players.”

The following year, Kramnik posted a list of players on social media titled “Cheating Tuesdays” that included Czech grandmaster David Navara. Navara later shared on his blog that Kramnik’s public accusations led him to consider suicide. Kramnik responded by accusing Navara of insult.

In June, the federation responded to the players’ public arguments by saying that the way Kramnik presented his arguments “brought a lot of harm to the chess community” and “could be devastating for the careers and well-being of some players.” The group invited Kramnik to submit details of his approach and statistical data for official evaluation.

Kramnik’s anti-cheat campaign exploded as the game moved online during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Many elite players have replaced the physical chessboard with a keyboard to continue playing despite the quarantine; this has created a surge in popularity of streaming content and fast-paced online gaming, which Naroditsky thrives on.

Brainsport players are known to value respectful behavior on the board. But in the digital arena, a new level of toxicity has developed, with claims of cheating becoming more common and much more difficult to prove. Players now have sophisticated computer programs at their fingertips that can give them an unfair advantage and new ways to profit from their online success.

In blitz-and-bullet chess, where players have only a few minutes to finish intense matches, top talents often move with the same speed and precision as a computer, experts say. Naroditsky was ranked among the top 25 blitz players in the world and won the U.S. National Blitz Championship in August.

Dvorkovich admitted on Wednesday: “Recently public debates in the chess world have often gone beyond acceptable limits and damaged not only people’s reputation, but also their well-being.” “When this happens, arguments can escalate into harassment, bullying, and personal attacks—an especially serious problem in today’s environment.”

Dvorkovich said the federation would award an award in Naroditsky’s memory.

Kramnik continued to post about Naroditsky the day his death was announced, calling it a tragedy and speculating about the cause. Kramink wrote on social platform X that the death “should be investigated by the police.” On Wednesday, he wrote that he received threats after revealing “public information about the ‘dark side’ of modern chess.”