11-year-old British chess champion becomes youngest female grandmaster

An 11-year-old chess player from the United Kingdom is making all the right moves -- and she has raised her game to an elite level.

Bodhana Sivanandan, of London, earned her third and final norm to become a woman grandmaster (WGM), the BBC reported. That makes her the youngest female grandmaster of all time, according to CNN.

She secured her third and final WGM norm with a certified title-level performance while representing England at the 46th Chess Olympiad in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, the International Chess Federation (FIDE) confirmed.

Sivanandan played all 11 rounds on England’s top board and finished the tournament with eight points, the BBC reported. She had already topped the 2300 rating plateau required for the WGM designation before clinching the final norm, according to the news outlet.

“I’m happy to do it, but I want to keep going and keep making history as well, instead of just stopping here,” Sivanandan told FIDE in an interview released on YouTube on Sunday.

Sivanandan broke the record held by Kateryna Lagno, who has represented both Russia and Ukraine. Lagno earned WGM status when she was 12, the BBC reported. Hou Yifan, of China, also achieved the title at 12 and remains the youngest woman to have earned the higher, open grandmaster (GM) title, the news outlet reported. Hou was 14 when she earned that title.

Players typically need three qualifying norms and a rating of at least 2400 to become an international mast, according to the BBC.

Players normally need three qualifying norms and a rating of at least 2400 to become an international master. Sivanandan now has two IM norms, according to the news outlet.

Sivanandan became the youngest female player to defeat a grandmaster in August 2025, CNN reported.

She beat 60-year-old grandmaster Pete Wells at the age of just 10 years, 5 months, 3 days, according to the cable news outlet. FIDE noted she broke a mark set by U.S. player Carissa Yip, who was 10 years, 11 months, 20 days old when she defeated a grandmaster in 2019.

Sivanandan said she learned to play chess during the COVID-19 pandemic when she was 5, CNN reported. A family friend had given her family some toys and books, and Sivanandan picked up the sport when she saw a chessboard in the bag.

“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.”

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