Still small enough to need a booster seat, Bodhana Sivanandan is now officially a chess Grandmaster.
The 11-year-old Indian-origin British prodigy has become the youngest player in history to earn the Woman Grandmaster (WGM) title after securing her third and final WGM norm while representing England at the 46th Chess Olympiad in Samarkand, Uzbekistan.
And even after making history, Sivanandan did not sound particularly interested in stopping to celebrate.
“I’m happy to do it, but I want to keep going and keep making history as well, instead of just stopping here,” she told FIDE in an interview.
The latest achievement adds another remarkable chapter to a chess career that began during the Covid-19 lockdown, when Sivanandan taught herself the game.
She was seven when she won all 24 of her games at the 2022 European Schools Championship. A year later, she became the youngest person to avoid defeat against a grandmaster in a competitive game. At nine, she was selected for England’s team at the 2024 Chess Olympiad in Budapest, becoming the youngest person to represent England internationally in any sport.
Now, she has broken another record.
TOP BOARD, TOP CHALLENGE
Sivanandan played all 11 rounds for England in Samarkand on Board 1.
For casual chess fans, that may not immediately sound significant. In a team match, four players represent each country and play simultaneously. They are arranged in order, with Board 1 generally assigned to the team’s strongest player. That means the player on Board 1 also faces the opposition’s top player.
At just 11, Sivanandan was therefore playing at the front of England’s team against the strongest opposition.
She finished the Olympiad with eight points and secured the WGM norm she needed. She had already crossed the 2,300 rating threshold required for the title before completing her third norm.
Sivanandan had made her Olympiad debut at nine on Board 4. Two years later, she was trusted with the team’s top board.
But she said she did not feel particularly weighed down by the responsibility.
“Not really. I just tried to enjoy it,” she said.
“This is my second Olympiad, but I was playing on kind of the opposite end of the boards. It felt very similar to the last one except I was playing on a different board.”
The WGM title, meanwhile, is the highest of the women’s-only titles awarded by FIDE.
Sivanandan’s achievement means she has now surpassed the previous age record held by Kateryna Lagno, who earned the WGM title at 12. China’s Hou Yifan also became a WGM at 12 before going on to become the youngest woman to earn the open Grandmaster title, at 14.
SCHOOL BETWEEN TOURNAMENTS
For all the chess and travel, Sivanandan’s life still includes something rather ordinary: school.
She attends school full-time and catches up on work when she returns from tournaments. There is no homeschooling arrangement allowing her to devote every hour to chess.
“I like travelling and also because I do full-time school as well, it links to loads of school subjects, so it’s really useful there as well,” she said.
For now, she wants to continue balancing both.
“I think I want to try and balance it for now, at least,” she said.
That balancing act has become increasingly demanding as her chess career has accelerated.
In 2025, aged 10, Sivanandan became the youngest female player to defeat a grandmaster when she beat Peter Wells at the British Chess Championships. Earlier this year, she earned her first IM norm at the Dole Open in France, becoming the youngest girl to do so at 11 years and four months. She also defeated Grandmaster Marc’Andria Maurizzi, becoming the youngest girl known to beat a player rated above 2,600 in a classical game.
She has also become Britain’s youngest women’s chess champion.
Yet when asked what piece of history she wants to achieve next, Sivanandan did not have a specific answer.
“I’m not sure exactly what, but just kind of do whatever I can as it comes,” she said.
That might be the most fitting response from an 11-year-old who has already accumulated more chess records than most players could dream of.
There will be more tournaments, more schoolwork and, almost certainly, more milestones.
For now, though, Bodhana Sivanandan has another title to add to her name: the youngest Woman Grandmaster in chess history.
– Ends
