Daniel Naroditsky, a U.S. chess grandmaster who was a popular chess commentator and commanded a large online audience, has died. He was 29.

Naroditsky was a head coach at the Charlotte Chess Center in Charlotte, North Carolina. The center announced his death in a statement posted on social media on Oct. 20.

The statement did not give a cause of death or reveal where Naroditsky died, noting only that his death was “unexpected.”

“Daniel was a talented chess player, commentator, and educator, and a cherished member of the chess community, admired and respected by fans and players around the world,” his family said in a statement. “He was also a loving son and brother, and a loyal friend to many.”

Naroditsky, who was known as Danya, was born on Nov. 9, 1995, in San Mateo, California. He began learning chess when he was 6 years old.

He told The New York Times in a 2022 interview that his older brother, Alan, introduced him to chess at a birthday party.

“I think a lot of people want to imagine that it was love at first sight, and that my brother couldn’t pull me away from the chessboard,” Naroditsky told the newspaper. “It was more of a gradual process, where chess slowly entered the battery of stuff we did to pass the time. A lot of my best memories are just doing stuff with my brother.”

Daniel Naroditsky would play in five U.S. Championships, according to the U.S. Chess Federation. He won titles in the junior and youth divisions and won a gold medal in the Under-12 Open division of the 2007 FIDE World Youth Championships.

When he was 17, he won the 2013 U.S. Junior Championship. He was also awarded the title of international master in 2011 and earned the title of grandmaster in 2013 at a tournament in Villa de Benasque, Spain.

Naroditsky graduated with a bachelor’s degree in history from Stanford University in 2019.

In addition to being an elite player, Naroditsky authored two chess manuals -- his first manual, “Mastering Positional Chess,” was published when he was 14. His second manual, “Mastering Complex Endgames,” was published two years later, in 2012.

He became a regular contributor to Chess Life magazine and other platforms dedicated to the game. The New York Times hired Naroditsky as a chess columnist in 2022.

Naroditsky had a large following on Twitch and YouTube -- each channel has more than 300,000 subscribers -- where he would livestream games.

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