Sadly, this week saw the passing of Chess Grandmaster and streamer Daniel Narodistky and it came as a shock for a lot of people including me. I was particularly a fan of his “speedrun” videos, it really helped demystify chess. I used to think high level chess was this impenetrable mix of “opening” knowledge and thinking 20 moves in advance, but he really showed how each move made sense in an almost obvious way, either positionally or tactically. Watching his videos you get the feeling that you grasp chess and that, of course you could have won that game too, that was easy ! (only to lose against a 1000 ELO in your next game).
Guy seemed like a class act in real life as well, and it is a great loss for chess and the world in general. It was really unexpected, having released a video just a few days prior. One of the only Youtuber I subscribe too for his personality rather than the subject itself (the others would be ThreeBlueOneBrown and Andrej Karpathy), often watching his videos just before sleeping as it was such a relaxing watch.
I guess that’s all I feel like saying for today !