London chess prodigy, 10, becomes master player

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www.bbc.com

London chess prodigy, 10, becomes Woman International Master

Bodhana Sivanandan, from Harrow, also became the youngest female player to beat a grandmaster.
www.bbc.com www.bbc.com

A 10-year-old chess prodigy from north-west London has become the youngest person to earn the woman international master title.

Bodhana Sivanandan, from Harrow, also became the youngest female player to beat a chess grandmaster at the 2025 British Chess Championship earlier this month.

In 2024 Bodhana was thought to have become the youngest person ever to represent England internationally in any sport when she was selected for England Women's Team at the Chess Olympiad in Hungary.

Her father Siva previously told the BBC he had no idea where his daughter got her talent from as neither he or his wife, both engineering graduates, are any good at chess.

The International Chess Federation said on its social media account on X that Bodhana "pulled off the win against 60-year-old Grandmaster Peter Wells in the last round of the 2025 British Chess Championships in Liverpool".

The federation added: "Sivanandan's victory at 10 years, five months and three days beats the 2019 record held by American Carissa Yip (10 years, 11 months and 20 days)."

Grandmaster is the highest title a chess player can attain and the rank is held for life.

Bodhana's new title - woman international master - is the second highest-ranking title given exclusively to women, second only to woman grandmaster.

Bodhana first took up chess during the Covid-19 pandemic.
 
OK. Brain "wired" for this and is a child prodigy. Some tiny percentage of the population is born this way. It's not anything the child did, she was born with this talent. Nothing to praise or admire. It's not like an average person worked their way up to 'genius' grandmaster level through 16 hours of study and work, day in and day out for an entire lifetime.
 
Mirai said:
OK. Brain "wired" for this and is a child prodigy. Some tiny percentage of the population is born this way. It's not anything the child did, she was born with this talent. Nothing to praise or admire. It's not like an average person worked their way up to 'genius' grandmaster level through 16 hours of study and work, day in and day out for an entire lifetime.
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I very much doubt anyone could achieve something of this level without an awful lot of practice and hard work. Seems odd to denigrate her achievement by saying she has exceptional talent but doesn't deserve praise or admiration. Lots of people are born with great talent and don't achieve great things because of a lack of work ethic.
 
Cray said:
I very much doubt anyone could achieve something of this level without an awful lot of practice and hard work. Seems odd to denigrate her achievement by saying she has exceptional talent but doesn't deserve praise or admiration. Lots of people are born with great talent and don't achieve great things because of a lack of work ethic.
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Why would someone who was born with a talent, need praise or admiration ahead of someone who was born average and is also an average person. Should we praise someone who was born pretty and then ignore someone who is of average looks?

Normally in the West, we praise people's efforts or achievements when they overcome some sort of barrier or handicap. So say a destitute labourer who completes high school and matriculates at the age of 80 or a blind person who obtains a PhD despite all the additional struggles they have to get through. In fact we sometimes praise the effort alone, someone who put in 200% effort and due diligence but still failed at some complex task, would still deserve praise and admiration, for the sheer determination and pain put in to try to overcome the challenge.

Think deeper about this. What are we praising? The arrangement of genes which led to the 'wiring' in her cerebral cortex to be such that she can simply 'click' chess moves in her mind at a faster rate than 99.9% of the population, including skilled players?

Come on, no average 10 year old despite endless hard work and practice in those few years they had would be capable of beating a grand master. The chance she is an average person who worked this hard to beat a grand master in a few years and is not 'gifted' is very low.

She deserves as much praise and admiration as much as anyone else who is not a criminal or menace to society. I mean it's OK to say, ok there is a new child prodigy chess player. But praises and admiration for something you did not bring about yourself seems irrational. Do we really want to stoke her ego that much?
 
Not sure why this blows your mind, Cray. (The other guy is a troll, I know Cray seriously thought about this).

I suppose a materialist reductionist who denies free will could say - the person with the aptitude who will work hard has that arrangement of genes which will allow them to do so, or compel them to do so. The person who is 'lazy' on the other hand does not. In that context, nobody really deserves praise of chastisement for anything. A serial killer will kill because of wiring and a good Samaritan will go out of their way to help because of that. But I think that sort of view is controversial and eliminative materialism is not necessarily the true situation of reality.
 
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Just another average person who is absolutely extraordinary and deserves the praise she gets and many people will look up to her. What an inspiration for the young and old. Truly a figure that shows that if you put your mind to something you can achieve it, with hard work and determination.
 
RedViking said:
Just another average person who is absolutely extraordinary and deserves the praise she gets and many people will look up to her. What an inspiration for the young and old. Truly a figure that shows that if you put your mind to something you can achieve it, with hard work and determination.
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It's doubtful she's an average person. It takes decades for an average person to get to that level of skill to beat the top players and it may not even be possible, they could at best rival or approach them, maybe. Some of these top players were prodigies themselves.
 
Mirai said:
It's doubtful she's an average person. It takes decades for an average person to get to that level of skill to beat the top players. Some of these top players were prodigies themselves.
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Just because your family has bad jeans doesn't mean blue jeans are bad. 1755149339181.jpeg

This extraordinary girl deserves to be on a billboard and inspire the young and old.
 
Mirai said:
Why would someone who was born with a talent, need praise or admiration ahead of someone who was born average and is also an average person. Should we praise someone who was born pretty and then ignore someone who is of average looks?

Normally in the West, we praise people's efforts or achievements when they overcome some sort of barrier or handicap. So say a destitute labourer who completes high school and matriculates at the age of 80 or a blind person who obtains a PhD despite all the additional struggles they have to get through. In fact we sometimes praise the effort alone, someone who put in 200% effort and due diligence but still failed at some complex task, would still deserve praise and admiration, for the sheer determination and pain put in to try to overcome the challenge.

Think deeper about this. What are we praising? The arrangement of genes which led to the 'wiring' in her cerebral cortex to be such that she can simply 'click' chess moves in her mind at a faster rate than 99.9% of the population, including skilled players?

Come on, no average 10 year old despite endless hard work and practice in those few years they had would be capable of beating a grand master. The chance she is an average person who worked this hard to beat a grand master in a few years and is not 'gifted' is very low.

She deserves as much praise and admiration as much as anyone else who is not a criminal or menace to society. I mean it's OK to say, ok there is a new child prodigy chess player. But praises and admiration for something you did not bring about yourself seems irrational. Do we really want to stoke her ego that much?
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Hard disagree, in most highly competitive sports natural talent is never enough by itself to achieve great things. Achieving great things in any competitive area requires dedication and sacrifice, all those naturally gifted athletes at the Olympics didn't just coast in on the back of natural ability. All of theme give up huge amounts to achieve at that level and the idea that we should appreciate her achievements because she has "natural ability" seems daft to me.

Ask any coach and they will tell you that achievement is about ability and the desire to put in hard work. Sport is just too competitive these days to achieve at a high level without talent and hard work.

As someone who is not a gifted athlete, I know Gerda Steyn is a phenom who has amazing genetics and natural running ability. There is not amount of training I could ever do to get even close to her level. But I follow her on Strava and know the massive amount of work she puts in to being as good as she is, but in your mind that shouldn't be worthy of praise?

Seems a very bizarre take, but you do you.
 
Mirai said:
OK. Brain "wired" for this and is a child prodigy. Some tiny percentage of the population is born this way. It's not anything the child did, she was born with this talent. Nothing to praise or admire. It's not like an average person worked their way up to 'genius' grandmaster level through 16 hours of study and work, day in and day out for an entire lifetime.
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That and she uses two queens.
 
Cray said:
Hard disagree, in most highly competitive sports natural talent is never enough by itself to achieve great things. Achieving great things in any competitive area requires dedication and sacrifice, all those naturally gifted athletes at the Olympics didn't just coast in on the back of natural ability.
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You're comparing physical ability (muscle strength) to some sort of cognitive power. And even here these people practice for many more years than this child of 10 who worked on chess for what? 2-3 years? Know any athletes who were non athletes and in 2-3 years won gold at the Olympics?

Yes there is a level of admiration, there we have, but we have more admiration for an athlete from a third world country who without all the special science and specialised equipment got to a similar level.

Cray said:
All of theme give up huge amounts to achieve at that level and the idea that we should appreciate her achievements because she has "natural ability" seems daft to me.
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Many other players who competed against her did the same and more. Where is the praise for them?

Cray said:
Ask any coach and they will tell you that achievement is about ability and the desire to put in hard work. Sport is just too competitive these days to achieve at a high level without talent and hard work.
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Coach in chess?

Talent in something like chess is like 90% of the work.

Cray said:
As someone who is not a gifted athlete, I know Gerda Steyn is a phenom who has amazing genetics and natural running ability. There is not amount of training I could ever do to get even close to her level. But I follow her on Strava and know the massive amount of work she puts in to being as good as she is, but in your mind that shouldn't be worthy of praise?
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Not more so than 1000s of others.

Cray said:
Seems a very bizarre take, but you do you.
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Thanks for the insult.
 
Mirai said:
OK. Brain "wired" for this and is a child prodigy. Some tiny percentage of the population is born this way. It's not anything the child did, she was born with this talent. Nothing to praise or admire. It's not like an average person worked their way up to 'genius' grandmaster level through 16 hours of study and work, day in and day out for an entire lifetime.
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Nothing to admire you say?😂
I reckon it's much like a gorgeous woman that won the gene lottery, most certainly worthy of admiring, except that this chess ability occurs far less frequently.
 
Her father Siva previously told the BBC he had no idea where his daughter got her talent from
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Alexander the Straight said:
Nothing to admire you say?😂
I reckon it's much like a gorgeous woman that won the gene lottery, most certainly worthy of admiring, except that this chess ability occurs far less frequently.
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You can admire if you want. I just find nothing to admire given that it comes naturally to her. Unless the parents also abused her and she overcame that at the same time.

Just because someone is born with a rare gene arrangement, does not make them worthy of admiration. I mean one can admire them but I would challenge that. OK, you won the gene lottery- let's praise you for that. 99.9% of the other people - well you get less admiration or none at all.
 
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