US chess superstar Daniel Naroditsky faced repeated, unproven accusations of cheating by Russian rival before his death at 29

: An American chess superstar who died at age 29 was engaged in a bitter feud with a rival player who accused him of cheating — and one of his final opponents accused the rival of being responsible for his death.

The unexpected death of Daniel Naroditsky, from Charlotte, NC, was announced by his family in a statement released on Monday by his club, the Charlotte Chess Center.

No cause of death was given for the former chess prodigy, who became a Grandmaster aged just 18.

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Over the past year, Naroditsky had faced vicious accusations of cheating by former world champion Vladimir Kramnik.

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Kramnik, 50, insinuated that his US rival was cheating, using footage of Naroditsky’s online games to claim that he was looking at a second screen on which he had a sophisticated computer program that could calculate millions of chess moves a second.

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Naroditsky always strenuously denied that he had cheated and had faced no other accusations of misconduct from any other players.

Here’s the latest on the death of chess grandmaster Daniel Naroditsky

• American chess grandmaster dead unexpectedly at 29
• US chess superstar faced repeated, unproven accusations of cheating by Russian rival before his death at 29
• US chess superstar was incoherent, rambling in final stream just days before his death
• Ex-world chess champ investigated for unfounded attacks on grandmaster — as grieving mom says he died tormented by them

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Kramnik later deleted his account on the website chess.com after launching a GoFundMe to crowdfund his unspecified goal of “trying to clean modern chess from cheating.”

In a since-deleted final stream shared on Twitch, Naroditsky fell asleep repeatedly while playing, discussed the impact of Kramnik’s accusations, and appeared deeply distressed, El País reported.

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Kramnik wrote, “Don’t do drugs,” in a cryptic post following the announcement of Naroditsky’s death, before referencing a “strange recent stream” from the American star.

The next day, he responded to a post of a screengrab of Naroditsky’s final video, writing, “Not a doctor but looks like something ‘very else’ than sleeping pills. Hope, if any, real friends of him will care.”

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His seemingly callous response sparked fury in the chess world.

“He [Kramnik] has kind of literally taken a life,” Indian chess Grandmaster Nihal Sarin told the Indian Express.

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Sarin, who was the last player to face Naroditsky online before his death, said the American appeared troubled during their final game.

“He said he was under immense stress due to a lot of baseless accusations — headed by Kramnik, of course. Apparently, unfortunately, quite a few others also seem to have joined in,” Sarin said.

“Why would somebody like Naroditsky cheat? And that is a question that guys like Kramnik can just very conveniently ignore,” he added.

“I cannot process how messed up some of these minds are. I don’t understand what you get from this? What do you get from ruining anyone’s life?” Sarin said.

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Naroditsky’s fellow American chess streamer Hikaru Nakamura, ranked third in the world, also slammed Kramnik in the wake of his friend’s death.

“This guy is a disgrace to chess,” he said in a live stream. “I’ll say it again, Kramnik can go f–k himself. He can go f–k himself and can go rot in hell.”

Russian chess ace Kramnik, who lives in Switzerland, did not respond immediately to requests for comment.

Chess.com also did not respond to requests for comment.

“We cannot comment or speculate as this is an active investigation,” a spokesperson for the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department told The Post.