All of Daniel Naroditsky's videos summarised. #1
Daniel Naroditsky is probably one of the most influential chess players of the 21st century. In this series that I'm making, hopefully lasting until July 2027, I will unpack every video Daniel Naroditsky made until his unfortunate death on the 19th of October 2025. Also, for the thumbnail, I will put my favourite video of the 15 days. This one is the 4th video or which you can get to by clicking on the pictures.
Also, sorry about the late upload, I kind of procrastinated a bunch, I will try to even out the schedule from now on.
So, let's get into this:
Vid 1: It feels interesting Danya going through the Italian, an opening that to my knowledge, he doesn’t play, in a way that is very instructive. Towards the end of the beginning of the stream, Daniel finds a tactic to get Tori out of her situation after she blunders a minor piece. Daniel went through his calculation step by step in a way that made it easy to understand. He clearly puts effort into his videos, and especially early on, he shows you how he thinks and understands sayings as well as quotes, showing his knowledge of chess history. It of course feels strange seeing a nostalgic version of him, even before he sadly passed.
It's funny seeing him trying to “troll” a “stream sniper” who wasn’t, but the chat believed he was. He was cheating though and was banned 4 days later. Naroditsky actually admitted that he was calculating faster than he was! The game is very interesting to analyze, knowing how Daniel explains it, step-by-step. The game itself was great, but knowing she played a cheater, it kind of made it worse. However, due to that, we watched a great game in general. Danya explains it incredibly well.
Vid 2: In this video, Daniel Naroditsky showed how he played a game of bullet against Magnus Carlsen. He changed the lighting of the camera and placement which he would use until he passed. The first game he showed was a Jobolov London. These games show how Daniel uses intuition to help him with things like Blitz and of course Bullet.
Vid 3: This video was purely in Russian, and I don’t understand the language, so I’ll skip this video and continue on the Blog. Despite this, it's interesting how Danya shows his knowledge of the language
Vid 4: This video is extremely funny and shows Naroditsky impersonating famous chess players. This is definitely on the funny side to his general, professional content. The first clip really shows how the video is going to go, which is hilarious. (If you don’t understand, the queen is pinned.) I personally love the Kasparov impression which in my mind, is almost perfect. The tennis parts were funny, but nothing compares to the one clip out of nowhere where he is just drawing arrows for no reason. It would definitely be in a “Daniel Naroditsky out of context” video. Some of the other clips are hilarious as well. It’s one of the videos you need to check out, that you’ll enjoy. The Wesley impression was so good. (I’m enjoying this too much…) gegar gegar gegar!
Vid 5: This is similar to what Danya did with Tori on the first video. This time, Danya went for an approach where he went with Charlie (Moistcr1tikal) during the game instead of commenting with the chat without Tori, and then, after the game finished, he would comment on the game after with her. In this case, Danya went with Charlie during the game. Danya was taking the opportunity to trash talk Charlie the moment he said that Danya could. It’s very funny to watch. It gets a little crude, however, so just realize that before watching…
It’s interesting how Danya teaches a simple concept like the ladder mate to a person who isn’t familiar with it. It is one of the ideas that simply need to be taught and is practically how I started chess.
Vid 6: It’s interesting seeing how Danya tells Charlie how a similar rated player thinks. Again, similar to the last video, it’s still a little crude. He prepares Charlie to play XQC in a game of chess. Daniel was educating Charlie about the opening stage against XQC. Danya was teaching a variation of the Scotch opening which I, personally, have played. It’s quite interesting to see him go over the variation I first discovered as an eleven hundred. Anyway, after the main scotch moves: 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3. D4 Exd4 4. Nxd4. Danya suggests Charlie to go 4…Nf6 but hinting at him being able to go 4…Qf6 as well, which is the variation I was talking about earlier. Charlie just wanted to do Qf6. And that was what he played on the big day of the first season of Pogchamps. In the famous clip, XQC fell for one of the main traps on the 6th move…
Vid 7: At the start of this video, Naroditsky talked with Voyboy about chess. Danya talked about his brother, Alan Naroditsky, and many other things before they started the opening tutorial. You can see the difference about how he speaks and analyses the position depending on the student’s rating. He first launched into in-depth Sicilian theory. He went all the way to the middlegame, going through the tactics as well as all the positional ideas. Naroditsky made a mistake at the end trying to show chat what the idea was, and not realizing that VoyBoy could also see the arrows…
Vid 8: Honestly, the beginning of the video jump scared me lol. Here, Naroditsky did another streamer lesson, teaching his student about all the stages of the game. Boxbox didn’t have the best tactical recognition but did use many positional ideas. Daniel went into a very interesting rook endgame and taught how to turn it into a draw. Eventually, they played a very interesting game where as soon as Boxbox blunders, he switches positions with Daniel. I would actually try this one day. One tip that Naroditsky said applies to all of us, is to try to detect small changes in the position after the calculation. He showed a line where trading seemed the best move but later in the line, you lose the rook.
Vid 9: This video is another lesson with Moistcr1tical. The pair starts with a similar style to what they did last time they did a lesson together. Charlie got much better on Chess.com since the last lesson. It’s funny seeing Danya joke around like that. They unfortunately drew the first game, even though Charlie found very good moves, but for the second, he completely blew the opponent off the board. Over in the analysis, Danya showed many patterns to Charlie which were quite interesting. There was one where he sacrificed his bishop to win a pawn, and another where you castle to protect the queen.
Vid 10: This video is about clips of Danya making Neimann rage… I’m kidding. Danya produces a bunch of clips every few months. It’s funny seeing the last clip matching up to the famous Hans clip. Daniel Naroditsky makes Hans Niemann rage
Vid 11: You can really see how much Charlie has improved. Still a little crude but it should be fine. Danya showed Moistcr1tical famous games like the battle of Hastings. Danya made a joke at the start calling it the “Kasparov-Fischer gambit” that just blunders a queen for no reason. Danya sometimes would swear but seems like he had changed towards the end of his life. It hurts to remind myself that he’s dead. It genuinely hurts.
Anyway, Danya did a very good job to help Charlie in the harder positions. Charlie really has gained a better tactical recognition.
Vid 12: Danya playing bullet feels strange now. Meanwhile the Botez sisters are rambling in an indistinguishable mess. Wow he’s fast… And then… Oh no…
It’s cool seeing the Botez gambit in action. Even playing with 30 seconds on his clock, he still tries to teach the viewers. And then he did the impression.. The impression of Wesley So. After destroying them in the second round 5 – 0, Danya got his justice and watched them dance for some reason.
Vid 13: The first game he showed Charlie was a game where the queen was sacrificed multiple times. They then did a bunch of puzzles where Charlie slowly refined his tactical recognition. After they finished the puzzles, they ended up playing a few games. It’s funny how Danya talks about the sodium attack. I didn’t even know it’s called that because of Na3, having NA in the name which is the abbreviation of element sodium.
Vid 14: It’s funny how Danya does a profound “oops!” after he purposely gives Moistcr1tical a large advantage. Even 5 years ago, Danya still was able to show humor. He was a great man. It shows how much Charlie has progressed. He was seeing stuff that Danya was very impressed by!
Danya lost to a 900! Anyways, they started playing games after that great Botez Gambit. Charlie was finding tactics against his opponent. Danya was a great teacher. At the same time, Charlie was finding tactics left and right. He’s really improved. Later in the analysis of the first game, Danya found this amazing rook sacrifice, blocking off the path of the queen, and preparing checkmate. They continued playing for a game before the video ended.
Vid 15: As another streamer lesson happened, Danya talked about how he was introduced to chess through a birthday party. It’s very interesting to see him talk about it. I find Danny’s knowledge of chess, as well as the history of the game, fascinating, this isn’t something that can be unobtainable but is very interesting. Swiftor was probably more on the beginner side, prompting a good explanation by Danya, so he went through a nice, instructive opening with his student. After getting to the start of the middlegame, the explanation continued, really helping his student learn. Still wondering what happened with Swiftor’s camera. While that was happening, Danya was introducing his student to pins, which really helps in the long term. It ended shortly after that.
Wow! I wouldn't be ashamed of you if you skipped to the end. Even editing it took a while... Wow, 1870 words, probably my longest blogs.
Of course, Danya's passing is incredibly sad. I feel sad about it as well. He was a great man, and it feels weird to talk about him after his death. I feel like I forget that he's dead. I feel like I am still wondering how it happened. It is truly a sad case. I feel like the community is still recovering after a whole month.
As well as that note, I'll try to post these faster, as this came out very late. I am also preparing a blog on the Tao family, so I have partially worked on that as well as another project that I have been working on about recycling a certain type of plastic. Sorry if this is too much text for you though. I worked pretty hard, but I don't know if I should put in slightly less effort. I do feel like a regular structure isn't necessary, due to the event. If you have any feedback for the series, please let me know.
