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- 10-year-old chess prodigy becomes youngest female player to defeat grandmaster</p>
<p>Matias Grez, CNNAugust 15, 2025 at 6:04 PM</p>
<p>Bodhana Sivanandan made history at the British Chess Championships. - Christopher Furlong/Getty Images/File</p>
<p>A 10-year-old British girl has made chess history by becoming the youngest female player to ever beat a grandmaster.</p>
<p>Bodhana Sivanandan, from northwest London, defeated 60-year-old grandmaster Pete Wells in the final round of the 2025 British Chess Championships in Liverpool on Sunday.</p>
<p>At 10 years, five months and three days, Sivanandan broke the record set by American Carissa Yip, who was 10 years, 11 months and 20 days old when she defeated a grand master in 2019, according to the International Chess Federation (FIDE).</p>
<p>Sivanandan has now earned woman international master status, one level below the female-exclusive woman grandmaster title; the highest title in chess is grandmaster, owned by the likes of current world chess champion Gukesh Dommaraju and world No. 1 Magnus Carlsen.</p>
<p>Her dad told the BBC in 2024 that "nobody at all" in their family had previously excelled at chess.</p>
<p>Sivanandan said she picked up the sport during the Covid pandemic when she was five, after one of her dad's friends gifted them some toys and books.</p>
<p>"In one of the bags, I saw a chessboard, and I was interested in the pieces," she told the BBC.</p>
<p>"I wanted to use the pieces as toys. Instead, my dad said that I could play the game, and then I started from there."</p>
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