From the moment chess phenom Dhruti Shah picked up her first pawn at age 6, she felt the transformative power of the game.
Like other kids, Shah spent much of her childhood juggling a multitude of different activities, but nothing grabbed her attention the way chess did. She possessed an inherent skill from a young age, but Shah humbly points to other motivations for pursuing the game.
“I found out I didn’t really have an artistic or athletic bone in my body,” Shah says, “so I decided I (was) going to continue chess from there.”
Jokes aside, Shah’s ability to excel in this layered strategy game at such an early age is one of the reasons she has found a passion for it during her 10 years of competition. Shah appreciates how accessible the game can be.
“It’s really powerful to me that if you’re 5 years old or 50 years old, you can be equally good at chess at any age,” she says.
First moves
Shah, a senior at Dublin Jerome High School, has achieved a lot throughout her professional playing career. She has won state and national titles including being named the Ohio Girls Online Champion in 2021.
On top of her chess titles, Shah has built a successful private tutoring business as well as a philanthropic chess academy all before graduating from high school.
Shah founded the Knightingales Chess Academy, which offers free chess lessons to aspiring players all over the world, when she was in middle school. She was inspired to build the academy after diving into the world of competitive chess and seeing that it was overwhelmingly male-dominated.
Although the Knightingales camps are a large-scale operation today, her work started with humble beginnings – in the basement of her parents’ house.
“I was pretty young,” Shah says. “I biked around my neighborhood passing out chess camp flyers.”
Her basement lessons gained traction around the community, and attendees quickly began reaching out for private lessons. Soon, Shah partnered with local Dublin organizations like The Miracle League of Central Ohio and Forever Dublin to pair her passion for chess with philanthropic efforts.
Now, she gives private lessons to more than 50 students and teaches hundreds in her community the rules of chess through free camps.
Going global
Although Shah’s business had already made a significant impact in Dublin, she had a vision to take Knightingales Chess Academy further. She set her sights on a trip to India, a country booming with appreciation for chess.
After contacting several organizations in India, Shah paired with JJCT Trust, an Indian institution that empowers children with disabilities, and she in 2021 prepared to host her first event in Ahmedabad.
During the event, Shah led students through an immersive crash course on the rules of chess before conducting a tournament with her new trainees. The response was overwhelmingly positive, and Shah’s first international event was a massive success, attended by more than 300 people.
After Ahmedabad, Shah spent the remainder of her time in India visiting multiple different cities and spreading her knowledge to eager participants. Shah ignited a passion for chess in numerous minds that summer, but she says her goals extended beyond the lines of competition.
“It was kind of to raise awareness to the fact that they can do anything,” she says.
Meeting the challenges
Though Shah is incredibly driven and hardworking, and has a deeply seated love for chess, building Knightingales Chess Academy was no easy feat.
In India, Shah faced difficulties in translating an already complicated game for people with whom she did not share a native language. In some of the cities she visited, Shah faced barriers with regional dialects.
However, she found that through patient communication with students, aid from her parents and the handy help of Google Translate, she persevered.
Yet there were still more obstacles to hurdle. The first stages of chess lessons can often be tedious for chess students, and she must find ways to keep young minds engaged.
“That’s my job as a chess coach,” Shah says, “to make it as interesting as possible for them, just to make sure they stick with it.”
Shah uses engaging tools such as education games – including Jeopardy! and Kahoot! – to add healthy competition to learning sessions.
And though Shah spends much of time as a teacher, she still has titles to defend and claim, and has gained wide recognition in her competitive chess career. She currently is ranked among the top three female chess players in Ohio and represented the state in the All-Girls National Chess Championship.
Shah describes her appearance in the national event as the height of her competitive career.
“It was definitely exhilarating,” Shah says. “It was amazing to see people my age, girls like me, playing chess. It was so beautiful to see people who also thought that chess was their defining moment.”
It is clear from both Shah’s professional and competitive endeavors that chess is more than just a game; it’s something she plans to take with her into the future.
Shah plans to expand the Knightingales Chess Academy by continuing her camps, both in Dublin and in India, building upon its impact.
Additionally, she hopes to play collegiate chess after she graduates from Jerome in spring 2024. No matter where life may take her, Shah will always bring her passion with her.
“I think we play chess to explore possibilities,” she says. “You can do almost anything on the chessboard, and whatever is happening outside of your life, when you’re in that moment on the chess board, everything fades away except for that game.”
Megan Brokamp is contributing writer at CityScene Media Group. Feedback welcome at feedback@cityscenemediagroup.com.
