An 8-year-old chess player won the European Championship, beating an opponent 30 years older than her (7 photos)

A British schoolgirl made chess history by winning the top prize at a European tournament at the age of just eight. Bodhana Sivanandan of London was named the best women's player at the European Blitz Championship held in Zagreb, Croatia.





Bodhana started playing chess at age five during the pandemic. The girl says that she wants to become a grandmaster, the youngest Olympic champion in England and eventually win the world title.

In the penultimate round she defeated her first international master, 39-year-old Lauryn D'Costa, coach of the England women's team, and in the final round she drew with two-time Romanian champion 54-year-old Vladislav Nevednichy.



If in the rapid chess round she showed a result of 5/11, then her performance in the 13-round blitz was called simply phenomenal by her colleagues.

Irina Bulmaga, 30, a Romanian international master and female grandmaster who was also present at the competition, said it was an “incredible result” for an eight-year-old girl, adding: “To win the first prize among women, ahead of me and a bunch of other experienced players!” She is simply a phenomenon!





In the summer, the young chess player met British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. 14-year-old chess champion Shreyas Royal was also present at the meeting.

Lawrence Trent, chess commentator and international master, said: “Bodhana Sivanandan is one of the greatest talents I have seen in recent memory. The maturity of her performance is simply breathtaking. I have no doubt that she will become England's strongest player and most likely one of the best masters the game of chess has ever seen."

Dominic Lawson, president of the English Chess Federation, told the Times that Bodhana's performance in the speed chess competition was "absolutely remarkable, but not surprising because she is a phenomenon."

“This is an unusual result for an eight-year-old child and something we have never seen before in this country,” he explained. “She has a surprisingly mature playing style, strategic and patient. It can be called the "long game."



Bodhana, Rishi Sunak, Shreyas Royal. The British government has announced it will invest £1 million in an attempt to increase the number of English grandmasters.

In one of the interviews, Bodhana told how she started playing chess. She liked the chessboard with pieces that they wanted to give to charity, and she took them for herself. It was during a pandemic, when everyone was sitting at home and there was a lot of free time. “The figures fascinated me. I kept asking my dad questions, and then he taught me how to play through YouTube lessons,” she said.

Then the father, seeing his daughter’s interest in chess, began taking her to classes at the local chess club in Harrow.



Bodhana became England's first world youth champion in 25 years, winning titles in the classic, rapid and blitz tournaments.



Bodhana is currently ranked third in the world in classical chess among players born in 2015. In just a few days, on December 28, she will take part in the International Chess Congress in Hastings, East Sussex.



Last year Nigel Short, the 1993 world title challenger and England's best-known player, predicted that Bodhana would become a household name in the chess world.

The player, who was also a prodigy at just nine years old, wrote: "I try not to jinx young players by over-praising them, but she looks like a really big talent."

Talking about her latest success, Bodhana modestly says: “I was very proud of myself when I took first place in the European blitz. I always try my best to win games, sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't."