A 10-year-old chess prodigy from north-west London has become the youngest person to earn the woman international master title.
Bodhana Sivanandan, from Harrow, also became the youngest female player to beat a chess grandmaster at the 2025 British Chess Championship earlier this month.
In 2024, Bodhana was thought to have become the youngest person ever to represent England internationally in any sport when she was selected for England Women’s Team at the Chess Olympiad in Hungary.
Her father, Siva, previously told the BBC he had no idea where his daughter got her talent from as neither he nor his wife, both engineering graduates, is any good at chess.
The International Chess Federation said on its social media account on X that Bodhana “pulled off the win against 60-year-old Grandmaster Peter Wells in the last round of the 2025 British Chess Championships in Liverpool”.
The federation added: “Sivanandan’s victory at 10 years, five months and three days beats the 2019 record held by American Carissa Yip (10 years, 11 months and 20 days).”
Grandmaster is the highest title a chess player can attain and the rank is held for life.
Bodhana’s new title – woman international master – is the second highest-ranking title given exclusively to women, second only to woman grandmaster.
Bodhana first took up chess during the Covid-19 pandemic.
She says chess makes her feel “good” and helps her with “lots of other things like maths, how to calculate”.
Bodhana started playing chess during the pandemic lockdown, when she was five.
She told the BBC about how she came to the game when she paid a visit to Chess Fest in Trafalgar Square, central London, in July 2024.
“When it was 2020, it was Covid, so one of my dad’s friends was going back to India, and he had a few toys and books, and he gave them to us.
“And in one of the bags, I saw a chessboard, and I was interested in the pieces.
“I wanted to use the pieces as toys. Instead, my dad said that I could play the game, and then I started from there,” she said.
Bodhana’s dad Siva, said “nobody at all” in his family was proficient at chess before his daughter took up the game.
He said: “I try to trace down whether any of my cousins or anyone plays – nobody has any chess energy or chess-playing skills, no one played for any chess events.”
He added: “Overall, we are happy with whatever is happening. Hopefully she enjoys, plays well and performs.”
Bodhana said she hopes to achieve her ultimate goal and become a grandmaster.
Malcolm Pein, an international chess master who runs a charity that’s brought the game to a quarter-of-a-million state school children, said Bodhana was blazing a trail for girls and women in what has traditionally been a man’s game.
He said: “She’s so composed, she’s so modest and yet she’s so absolutely brilliant at chess.
“She could easily become the women’s world champion, or maybe the overall world champion. And certainly I believe that she’s on course to become a grandmaster.”
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