Bodhana Sivanandan

Bodhana Sivanandan (born 7 March 2015) is an English chess player from Harrow, London. She holds the title of Woman FIDE Master.

She attends St John Fisher primary school in Harrow.

Chess career
Sivanandan began playing chess during lockdown in 2020. In 2022 she said "I love to play chess because it helps me to recognise patterns, focus my attention and is helping me to learn how to strategise and calculate moves in advance. Also, I like the way the chess pieces move on the board, especially the knight."

In March 2022, 15 months after learning the game, Sivanandan was described by Leonard Barden as "exceptional". He wrote "Bodhana Sivanandan, who won silver medals in both the rapid and blitz European under-8 girls, is world No 1 girl in blitz in her age group by a whopping margin of 322 Fide points" and "Sivanandan's medals in Serbia match Houska's fifth place on her debut in the 1988 world girls U10".

In the European Schools age group championships held in Rhodes in May 2022, Sivandan won all 24 games she played and gained three gold medals.

At the age of seven, Sivanandan took part in the August 2022 British Chess Championship in Torquay. Leonard Barden, writing in The Guardian, described her play in the Open Rapid competition as "an eye-catching performance": she was the youngest contestant, and after two wins and a draw she defeated the current U12 champion, before being defeated by grandmaster Keith Arkell who said "I won only because of her inexperience".

In 2023 she defeated former British chess champion Peter Lee in an exhibition match.

Later that year, at the age of eight, Sivanandan scored 8.5/13 in the 2023 European Blitz chess championship in December 2023. She won the under-12 and women’s prizes at that championship, as well as being its top English player. However, no player was allowed more than one prize; she chose the women’s prize.

International Master Lawrence Trent wrote on Twitter on December 13, 2023: "The maturity of her play, her sublime touch, it's truly breath taking. ... I have no doubt she will be England's greatest player and most likely one of the greatest the game has ever seen".

In March 2024 she was the world no. 1 under-10 girl.

In July 2024, Sivanandan was selected for England's women's team for the 45th Chess Olympiad, in Budapest, Hungary in September. This made her the youngest person to ever be chosen for a full England team in any sport.