Bodhana Sivanandan | |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Born | 7 March 2015 |
| Title | Woman International Master (2025) [1] |
| Peak rating | 2216 (August 2025) |
Bodhana Sivanandan (born 7 March 2015) [2] [1] [3] is British chess player. She holds the title of Woman International Master. [4]
Sivanandan is from Harrow, London and the daughter of Indian Tamil parents from Tiruchirappalli. [5] Sivanandan attends St John Fisher primary school. [6] [7]
Sivanandan began playing chess during lockdown in 2020. In 2022 she said "I love to play chess because it helps me to recognise patterns, focus my attention and is helping me to learn how to strategise and calculate moves in advance. Also, I like the way the chess pieces move on the board, especially the knight." [8]
In March 2022, 15 months after learning the game, Sivanandan was described by Leonard Barden as "exceptional". He wrote "Bodhana Sivanandan, who won silver medals in both the rapid and blitz European under-8 girls, is world No 1 girl in blitz in her age group by a whopping margin of 322 Fide points" and "Sivanandan's medals in Serbia match Houska's fifth place on her debut in the 1988 world girls U10". [6]
In the European Schools age group championships held in Rhodes in May 2022, Sivanandan won all 24 games she played and gained three gold medals. [9]
Sivanandan took part in the British Chess Championship in Torquay in August 2022. Leonard Barden, writing in The Guardian , described her play in the Open Rapid competition as "an eye-catching performance": she was the youngest contestant, and after two wins and a draw she defeated the current U12 champion, before being defeated by grandmaster Keith Arkell who said "I won only because of her inexperience". [10]
In 2023 she defeated former British chess champion Peter Lee in an exhibition match. [11]
Later that year, at the age of eight, Sivanandan scored 8.5/13 in the 2023 European Blitz chess championship in December 2023. [11] [12] [13] She won the under-12 and women's prizes at that championship, as well as being its top English player. However, no player was allowed more than one prize; she chose the women's prize. [11]
International Master Lawrence Trent wrote on Twitter on December 13, 2023: "The maturity of her play, her sublime touch, it's truly breath taking. ... I have no doubt she will be England's greatest player and most likely one of the greatest the game has ever seen". [13] [14]
In 2023 she became a Woman Candidate Master. [1]
In March 2024 she was the world no. 1 under-10 girl. [15]
In July 2024, Sivanandan was selected for England's women's team for the 45th Chess Olympiad, in Budapest, Hungary in September. [16] This made her the youngest person to ever be chosen for a full England team in any sport. [17] At that Olympiad, she won her first game [18] and followed up with two losses, two draws, and one loss. [19]
In November 2024, she won the top place in the Girls Under 18s category of the UK Chess Challenge. [20] [21]
In 2024 she became a Woman FIDE Master. [1]
In July 2025, at age ten, she became the youngest chess player to earn a Woman Grandmaster norm; the previous youngest to do so was Hou Yifan as an 11-year-old in 2005. [22] [23]
In August 2025, she defeated grandmaster Peter Wells in the British Chess Championship, becoming the youngest girl to defeat a grandmaster, beating Carissa Yip's record by over 6 months. [24] The win also gave her the final norm needed to become a Woman International Master, making her the youngest ever to earn that title. [25] [26]