Datta Kilari has amassed a variety of awards during his chess career.

Datta Kilari’s chess journey started with a curious question to his father when he was 6 years old.

“I watched my dad and my sister play and I was really interested,” said Kilari, now 15. “I saw that my dad was teaching my sister, and I asked him to teach me, too.”

The game did not come easily to Kilari at first.

“It took a lot of practice,” he said. “I lost to my dad every single time.”

Within a year, Kilari was beating his father regularly. He since has continued to rise through the ranks and recently earned the title of national master through his rating of 2,200 points.

“I kept practicing, and I got better over the years,” the Hopkinton High School freshman said.

Kilari plays or practices chess for two to three hours on most of his busy school days. On the weekends, he sometimes plays for seven hours or more. Much of Kilari’s competition takes the form of online games lasting just a few minutes, but he has his share of impressive finishes at major competitions.

Kilari tied for second at the New England Open Chess Championship in September and earned another second-place finish in December at the New England Blitz Chess Championship. In the latter competition, he knocked off Alexander Ivanov, a grandmaster who once was one of the top 50 players in the world. Kilari also has won the Spiegel Cup State Championship (in 2024) and represented Massachusetts in a national tournament of middle school state champions.

Kilari said he likes that chess lends itself to improvement; players can practice and get better and earn higher ratings. A significant part of Kilari’s improvement took place during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I didn’t think I would have many opportunities because I couldn’t play any in-person tournaments, so I just started playing online,” he said. “And I got a lot better.”

When in-person competition eventually returned, Kilari found that his skills had sharpened to the point where he was doing better against live opponents, and his rating quickly began to rise. It culminated with the national master rating that he earned at the end of 2025.

“It felt great, because I had been stuck at 2,100 for a long time, about 2 1/2 years,” Kilari said. “I still have a long, long way to go.”

Kilari ultimately wants to become a grandmaster. But he also is hoping to expand the game to a wider audience. He and his sister, Rithika have volunteered with the Hopkinton Public Library children’s chess club, teaching chess skills to beginners. He also is a coach at the Future Masters Chess Academy in Ashland. It’s something he has found rewarding and a way to give back to the game.

“Most people only play chess as a hobby, so it’s nice seeing someone progress as I teach them,” Kilari said. “I want to teach as much as I can and get more of my students to a high level. To see them improve, it’s a really nice feeling.”