{"id":107567,"date":"2026-01-21T19:24:15","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T19:24:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/107567\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T19:24:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T19:24:15","slug":"us-chess-grandmaster-daniel-naroditsky-cause-of-death-revealed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/107567\/","title":{"rendered":"US chess grandmaster Daniel Naroditsky cause of death revealed"},"content":{"rendered":"

US chess grandmaster Daniel Naroditsky suffered cardiac issues after taking kratom and meth<\/a>, according to a detailed medical examiner\u2019s report that ruled the 29-year-old\u2019s death an accident.<\/a><\/p>\n

Friends found Naroditsky on his living room couch with bags of kratom powder and over-the-counter cough medicine strewn around his Charlotte, North Carolina, home on Oct. 19, 2025.<\/p>\n

They had performed the wellness check after becoming concerned when Naroditsky missed a scheduled flight to Colorado.<\/p>\n

US chess grandmaster Daniel Naroditsky died from an accidental overdose of meth and kratom, a medical examiner\u2019s report has found. AP<\/p>\n

Two days earlier, the same friends had come over due to their alarm about his \u201cconcerning altered mental status,\u201d during a chess livestream<\/a>, the medical examiner\u2019s report said.<\/p>\n

There, they had \u201cconfiscated\u201d around 40 pills believed to be Adderall before leaving the house, according to the report.<\/p>\n

Naroditsky, a chess prodigy, had been under significant \u201cstress\u201d due to \u201ccheating allegations leveled against him<\/a> by a prominent international chess figure over the previous year,\u201d the report added.<\/p>\n

Naroditsky had been desperate to return to professional chess to dispel the false accusations that he and other top players were cheating using computer \u201cchess engines,\u201d his mother, Elena, said at the time of his death.<\/p>\n

Friends found Naroditsky on his living room couch with bags of kratom powder and over-the-counter cough medicine strewn around his Charlotte, North Carolina, home on Oct. 19, 2025. David Naroditsky\/YouTube<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was nothing more important to Daniel than his dignity and his name as a chess player,\u201d she told the Daily Mail.<\/p>\n

Former chess world champion, Russian player Vladimir Kramnik, had been among the prominent players accusing Naroditsky and others of cheating.<\/p>\n

Despite the pressure of the allegations, Elena said her son had been eager to prove he wasn\u2019t cheating, and that the majority of the chess world did not believe Kramnik\u2019s accusations.<\/p>\n

The same friends had come over due to their alarm about his \u201cconcerning altered mental status,\u201d during a chess livestream, the medical examiner\u2019s report said. YouTube\/ChessFlow<\/p>\n

\u201cDaniel tried to defend himself so much. The whole world was on Daniel\u2019s side. He played more and did more and more because he was trying to prove that he\u2019s not what he was accused of,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The week after his death, Naroditsky had been planning to visit his family in the Bay Area, Elena added.<\/p>\n

The last person to see the chess prodigy alive was a DoorDash delivery driver who brought food to his address at around 3 p.m. the day before.<\/p>\n

Former chess world champion, Russian player Vladimir Kramnik, had been among the prominent players accusing Naroditsky and others of cheating. AP<\/p>\n

The partially-eaten food was still on his dining room table when emergency responders arrived.<\/p>\n

His death was a result of probable cardiac arrhythmia due to probable cardiac involvement of systemic sarcoidosis, according to the medical examiner\u2019s report.<\/p>\n

Daniel Naroditsky playing chess on a computer, wearing headphones. AP<\/p>\n

The presence of methamphetamine and kratom in his system both contributed to his accidental death, the report stated.<\/p>\n

Kratom is a supplement sold as an energy booster, pain reliever, and mood lifter.<\/p>\n

The FDA warns it can cause trouble breathing, high blood pressure, liver damage, depression, hallucinations, and, in a small number of cases, death.<\/p>\n

Additional reporting by David Propper<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"US chess grandmaster Daniel Naroditsky suffered cardiac issues after taking kratom and meth, according to a detailed medical…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":107568,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[8090,23552,25571,9237,9,11,10,58],"class_list":["post-107567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-chess","tag-drug-overdoses","tag-heart-attacks","tag-meth","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107567"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107567\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}