BBCA 10-year-old chess prose female international of North-West London has become the youngest person to earn international master’s title.
Bodhana Shivanandan of Harrow, earlier this month, also became the youngest female player to defeat a chess grandmaster in the 2025 British Chess Championships.
In 2024, Bodhana was thought to have become the youngest person to represent England internationally in any sport when he was selected for the England women’s team at Chess Olympiad in Hungary.
His father Shiva first told the BBC that he had no idea where his daughter got his talent, nor is he or his wife, both engineering graduates, are any good in chess.
International chess federation Said on your social media account on X The Bodhana “won against 60 -year -old Grandmaster Peter Wales in the final round of the 2025 British Chess Championship in Liverpool.”
The Federation said: “Shivanandan’s victory in 10 years, five months and three days defeats the 2019 records organized by American Carisa YIP (10 years, 11 months and 20 days).”
The Grandmaster is a highest title that can get a chess player and rank for life.
Bodhana’s new title – Woman International Master – The second is the second highest ranking title given to women, the second for female Grandmaster.
Bodhana cheated for the first time during the Kovid -19 epidemic.
She says that chess helps her “good” and helps her with “how to calculate many other things like maths”.
Bodhana began playing chess during the epidemic’s lockdown, when she was five years old.
She told the BBC how she came into the game when she visited the Chess Fest in Truffar Square, Central London in July 2024.
“When it was 2020, it was Kovid, so my father’s friend was going back to India, and he had some toys and books, and he gave them them.
“And in a bag, I saw a chessboard, and I was interested in pieces.
“I wanted to use pieces as toys. Instead, my father said I can play the game, and then I started from there,” he said.
Bodhana’s father Shiva said that “no one” his daughter in his family was skilled in chess before playing.
He said: “I try to find out if I play any cousin or anyone – no one has chess energy or chess -skin skills, no one played for the events of chess.”
He said: “Overall we are happy with whatever is happening. Hopefully she enjoys, plays well and performs.”
Bodhana said that she expects to achieve her final goal and become a grandmaster.
Malcolm Payne, an international chess master who runs a charity, brought the game to a quarter-one million state school children, said that Bodhana is traditionally playing a man for girls and women.
He said: “He is very much made, he is very modest and yet he is very spectacular in chess.
“She can easily become a female world champion, or perhaps the overall world champion. And of course I believe she is definitely to become a grandmaster.”
