Bodhana Sivanandan has made history by becoming the youngest player in chess history to earn the Woman Grandmaster (WGM) title.
11-year-old Sivanandan, who originally hails from India, earned the WGM title while representing England at the 46th Chess Olympiad in Samarkand, Uzbekistan.
The London-based player competed at the tournament, which ran from September 15 to 27, and secured her third and final norm required for the title, scoring eight points from 11 games, according to the International Chess Federation (FIDE).
The Woman Grandmaster title is the highest female-only title in chess and is held for life.
Bodhana achieved the title at 11, breaking a record previously held by players, surpassing the previous record held jointly by Kateryna Lagno and Chinese chess player Hou Yifan, who both earned the Woman Grandmaster title at the age of 12.
Earlier this year, she became Britain’s youngest-ever women’s chess champion after beating WGM Trisha Kanyamarala.
ALSO READ: 12-Year-Old Girl Becomes Youngest Person In Canadian History to Graduate From University
Born 7 March 2015 in London, Bodhana’s journey with chess started almost by accident during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, when a family friend was going back to India and gave her some bags that contained a chessboard.
“In one of the bags, I saw a chessboard, and I was interested in the pieces,” she told the BBC. “I wanted to use the pieces as toys. Instead, my dad said that I could play the game, and then I started from there.”
Bodhana began learning by watching chess tutorials on YouTube. What started as a simple lockdown hobby quickly became something much bigger. She kept playing, kept learning, and soon began taking on serious competition.
Her parents moved from Tiruchirappalli, India, to the United Kingdom in 2007.
