Meet Bodhana Sivanandan: Indian-origin player, 11, makes history as Britain's top chess master

Chess is a game of the master stroke, a step-by-step war that only lets the most mindful of them all emerge victorious. In England, the board game has been topped by an Indian-origin teenager, Bodhana Sivanandan.

The 11-year-old is Britain's top-rated female player, as per the FIDE rating list for April 2026. Belonging to Harrow, Sivanandan recently secured the 72nd position in the International Chess Federation's global women's rankings. She achieved a rating of 2,366, overtaking 25-year-old Lan Yao, who previously held the top position among the English women chess players.

The north London schoolgirl has crossed numerous milestones before reaching the pinnacle. Her peak follows remarkable tournament victories in France, Austria and the UK.

However, the victory is a continuous effort for Sivanandan who remains focused on further improvement. "It's good, but I want to keep going," she said, per The Times. "I was a bit happy, but I don't want to stop there."

A childhood miracle

Bodhana took up a liking to the game at the young age of five. It was during the pandemic that she found a chessboard that belonged to her father, Siva, who actually planned to donate it to charity.

“I said it’s a game but she didn’t believe me, so I had to put on a YouTube video to explain. Then she asked about the rules — I knew just the very, very basics,” said her father, an IT professional, to the outlet. “Slowly her interest got better and better, and she started playing better as well, so we kept playing more and more chess.”

As she excelled, she started playing at the Harrow Chess Club along with defeating online opponents. At seven, she appeared at the European Schools Championship in May 2022 and won all of her 24 matches, walking away with three golds.

A year later, she gained an official FIDE title, that of a women's candidate master as her rating surpassed 2,000 in September 2023. In 2024, Bodhana set a record to become the youngest person to represent England in any sport when she was selected for the Chess Olympiad in Hungary.

In 2025, she became the youngest female player to beat a grandmaster when she defeated the 60-year-old Peter Wells at the British Chess Championships in Liverpool in August 2025.

“We can’t be prouder of Bodhana’s achievements. We cannot wait to see what she can do in her career. Bodhana has worked so hard, her family have worked so hard, and now she is competing at the highest level flying the flag,” praised Richard Walsh, chief executive of the English Chess Federation.

Currently studying in Year 6, she juggles preparation for her SAT exams along with taking violin and piano lessons and travelling the world for her chess tournaments. As she continues to put one pawn forward while pursuing her studies, Bodhana wishes to become the youngest grandmaster in history, a title held by American player Abhimanyu Mishra, who achieved the position at 12 years old.