Bodhana Sivanandan

Bodhana Sivanandan (born 7 March 2015) is an English chess player. She was awarded the title of Woman International Master in 2025, and the title of FIDE Master in 2026.

Chess career 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." 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".

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. 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".

In 2023 she defeated former British chess champion Peter Lee in an exhibition match. 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. In 2023 she became a Woman Candidate Master. In July 2024, Sivanandan was selected for England's women's team for the 45th Chess Olympiad, in Budapest, Hungary in September. This made her the youngest person to ever be chosen for a full England team in any sport. At that Olympiad, she won her first game and followed up with two losses, two draws, and one loss. In November 2024, she won the top place in the Girls Under 18s category of the UK Chess Challenge. In 2024 she became a Woman FIDE Master.

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. 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. The win also gave her the final norm needed to become a Woman International Master, making her the youngest ever to earn that title. She went on to defeat the former women's world chess champion and grandmaster Mariya Muzychuk at the European Chess Club Cup in October 2025. In November 2025, Sivanandan won the UK Women’s Blitz Championship.

In January 2026, she had eight draws and three wins at the European Women's Rapid Championship, with a final score of 7/11, finishing in twentieth place out of 143 players in the tournament. In March 2026, she shared first prize at the British Women's Rapidplay Championships, and had four wins in the Reykjavik Open. On 1 April 2026, an update to the FIDE rankings made her Britain’s top-rated female chess player. In July of that year, at eleven years and four months old, she became the youngest girl to defeat a grandmaster rated over 2600, by defeating Marc’Andria Maurizzi. In that same month she also became the youngest girl to achieve an International Master norm, surpassing Judit Polgár’s record of doing so at age eleven years and nine months in 1988. In August 2026, she became the youngest ever Women's British Chess Champion, beating Trisha Kanyamarala 1½ - ½ in a rapid playoff after both players finished on 5½/9 in the main championship. In 2026 she also became a FIDE master.

Personal life Sivanandan's parents moved from Tiruchirappalli, India, to the United Kingdom in 2007. Sivanandan was born in London on 7 March 2015. She lives in Harrow.