"then I started from there."
A 10-year-old chess prodigy from Harrow has made history by becoming the youngest person to earn the woman international master title.
Bodhana Sivanandan also became the youngest female player to beat a chess grandmaster at the 2025 British Chess Championship earlier this month.
In 2024, she was believed to have become the youngest person ever to represent England internationally in any sport.
This came after she was selected for the England Women’s Team at the Chess Olympiad in Hungary.
Her father, Siva, previously said he had no idea where her talent came from, as neither he nor his wife plays the game.
The International Chess Federation confirmed on social media 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”.
It 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 it is held for life.
Bodhana’s new title, woman international master, is the second-highest-ranking title given exclusively to women, behind only woman grandmaster.
Bodhana first took up chess during the Covid-19 pandemic. She says the game makes her feel “good” and helps with “lots of other things like maths, how to calculate”.
She explained how she discovered the game after visiting Chess Fest in Trafalgar Square 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.”
Siva said “nobody at all” in his family had any chess experience before his daughter started playing.
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.
“Overall, we are happy with whatever is happening. Hopefully she enjoys, plays well and performs.”
Bodhana said her ultimate goal is to become a grandmaster.
Malcolm Pein, an international chess master and head of a charity that has introduced the game to a quarter of a million state school children, praised her achievements.
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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