Indian-born Bodhana Sivanandan, still in the booster seat, becomes the youngest female GM

Bodhana Sivanandan, still small enough to need a booster seat, is now officially a chess grandmaster.

The 11-year-old British prodigy of Indian origin became the youngest player in history to win the Woman Grandmaster (WGM) title after securing the third and final WGM standard while representing England at the 46th Chess Olympiad in Samarkand, Uzbekistan.

And even after making history, Sivanandan didn’t seem particularly interested in pausing to celebrate.

“I’m happy to do it, but I want to go on and make history instead of just stopping here,” FIDE said in an interview.

The latest achievement adds another remarkable chapter to a chess career that began during the Covid-19 lockdown when Sivanandan was learning 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 competitive play. At the age of nine, she was selected for the England team for the 2024 Budapest Chess Olympiad, becoming the youngest person to represent England at international level in any sport.

Now she broke another record.

TOP PLATE, TOP CHALLENGE

Sivanandan played all 11 rounds for England in Samarkand on board 1.

To the casual chess fan, this 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 strongest player on the team. This means that the player on board 1 also faces the opponent’s best player.

So, at just 11 years old, Sivanandan was leading the English team against the strongest opposition.

She finished the Olympics with eight points and secured the WGM standard she needed. Before completing her third standard, she had already crossed the 2,300 mark required for the degree.

Sivanandan made her Olympic debut at nine on board 4. Two years later, she was trusted by the team management.

But she said she doesn’t feel particularly burdened by the responsibility.

“Not really. I was just trying to enjoy myself,” she said.

“It’s my second Olympics, but I was playing on the opposite end of the board. It felt very similar to the last one, except I was playing on a different board.”

The WGM title, meanwhile, is the highest of FIDE’s female-only titles.

Sivanandan’s success means she has now broken the previous age record held by Kateryna Lagno, who won the WGM title at 12. China’s Hou Yifan also became a WGM at the age of 12, before becoming the youngest woman to win an Open Grandmaster title at the age of 14.

SCHOOL BETWEEN TOURNAMENTS

For all the chess and travel, Sivanandan’s life still includes something quite ordinary: school.

He attends school full-time and catches up on work after returning from tournaments. There is no homeschooling arrangement that allows her to devote every hour to chess.

“I like to travel and also because I’m in day school, it ties into a lot of school subjects, so it’s really helpful there as well,” she said.

For now, he wants to continue balancing both.

“I think I want to at least try to balance it out,” she said.

As her chess career accelerated, this balancing act became increasingly difficult.

In 2025, aged 10, Sivanandan became the youngest player to defeat a Grandmaster when she defeated Peter Wells at the British Chess Championships. Earlier this year, she won her first IM norm at the Dole Open in France, becoming the youngest girl to do so at the age of 11 years and four months. She also defeated Grandmaster Marc’Andria Maurizzi to become the youngest girl known to have beaten a player rated above 2,600 in a classic game.

She also became Britain’s youngest women’s chess champion.

When asked what piece of history she wants to achieve next, Sivanandan didn’t have a concrete answer.

“I’m not sure exactly what, but just do what I can,” she said.

That might be the most fitting answer from an 11-year-old boy who has already amassed more chess records than most players can imagine.

There will be more tournaments, more homework, and almost certainly more milestones.

However, Bodhana Sivanandanová still has another title to her name: the youngest grandmaster in chess history.

– The end