Magnus Carlsen recalls being checkmated by Daniel Naroditsky, hails late American GM’s fearless attacking style: ‘That clash of style was interesting’

World No 1 Magnus Carlsen paid a glowing tribute to Daniel Naroditsky, who died suddenly a little over a week ago at 29, as the former world champion recalled getting checkmated by the late American Grandmaster in faster chess games.

Apart from being one of the top chess players in the world, Naroditsky also earned a name for himself as a popular chess commentator, coach a content creator. He was found dead at his residence in Charlotte, North Carolina, USA, on 19 October.

Naroditsky had been under tremendous mental stress recently after former world champion Vladimir Kramnik accused him of cheating in 2024. Naroditsky also spoke about the stress in his last live stream, a day prior to his death.

More from Chess

Magnus Carlsen faces D Gukesh again as Clutch Chess Champions Showdown 2025 gets underway at Saint Louis Daniel Naroditsky tragedy exposes dark underbelly of chess world and Vladimir Kramnik’s controversial cheating crusade

Carlsen: ‘Clash of style against Naroditsky was interesting’

Remembering Naroditsky, Carlsen praised how the American was able to win multiple fast chess games against him due to his ability to quickly build attacks and surprise the Norwegian.

“What was really interesting for me about playing Naroditsky was that he had a style that’s very different from mine. So I generally do well in faster formats unless I somehow get mated,” Carlsen said in an interview with ChessBase India. “I can play very good positional moves quickly. And that’s what was interesting about him was that he was able to drum up attacks out of nothing.

“And he would quite often actually checkmate me. Like that’s often how he won games (against me). And so for me that clash of style was extremely interesting.”

Carlsen made the comments at the St Louis Chess Club where he will be taking part in the Clutch Chess: Champions Showdown exhibition along with world champion D Gukesh, World No 2 Hikaru Nakamura and World No 3 Fabiano Caruana.

Carlsem slams Kramnik over cheating allegations

Carlsen had also criticised Kramnik a few days back for the way he hounded Naroditsky with unfounded cheating allegations.

“With the whole Kramnik situation not only with Naroditsky, from the beginning I would say. Obviously I have had problems with him in the past, not like big problems but generally, for all his greatness, generally, he thought that he was somebody who had a bit of a better reputation than that he deserved for many reasons. But I did feel from the very start that he when he was going through some kind of ‘crusade’ against cheating online, I did feel that, at the start, I didn’t agree with his numbers. I thought at the end of the day he is kind of fighting the good fight,” Carlsen said in video uploaded on the “Take Take Take” X account.

“But it turned on its head. First of all, he started to go after Hikaru (Nakamura) which seemed crazy. That was bad in itself but when he started going after Naroditsky so hard- first of all, I don’t think anybody thought Naroditsky was cheating. I know that coming from me, make of it what you will. Some people will say I have very little credibility on the matter but I personally in private expressed that I was sorry for what he was going through and supported him. Probably should have done that publicly as well but I think people can understand some of the reasons I was reluctant to. I thought, yeah, the way he was going after Naroditsky was horrible. Seeing how it affected him as well which was apparent now.

“I don’t have any more information. I don’t know what happened two days ago so I am not going to speculate on that. But regardless, even long before that it had clearly taken him to a point where he was not in a great space. So, again, make of what you will, coming from me but that was not good. It’s a great loss. It’s very sad for all of us that somebody who was such a resource to the chess community and also had a universally high approval rating from everybody he met was led to the place that he was,” Carlsen added.

Carlsen himself has been guilty of making unfounded cheating allegations as he accused Hans Niemann of cheating against him in 2022. He had to face a $100 million lawsuit from Niemann for his allegations as he failed to prove the cheating. The matter was later settled out of the court.