Bodhana Sivanandan, 11, can secure youngest-ever female IM title at European Club Cup on Friday

Eleven-year-old Bodhana Sivanandan can become the youngest female international master on Friday after taking her rating to 2399.4 while playing at the European Club Cup in Budva, Montenegro. Her final-round result, scheduled for Friday afternoon, will determine whether she records the third and decisive IM norm.

Sivanandan drew with former world title challenger GM Aleksandra Goryachkina in round one of the event and outplayed an International Master in round three to move to 2399.4, just 0.6 points shy of the 2400 threshold. In her subsequent game she drew from a winning position against GM Nino Batsiashvili, who is rated 2426. Those results have placed her among the 10 youngest players ever to reach a 2400 rating.

To claim the title and complete her final IM norm, Sivanandan must win her last round against a 2034-rated opponent or draw against a 2116-rated opponent on Friday afternoon; the game will be shown live on lichess from 1pm BST. Achieving that norm would also break Judit Polgar’s female world age record set 38 years ago and would put Sivanandan among the 10 youngest International Masters of all time.

The list of the 10 youngest 2400-rated players now includes the new Russian prospect Roman Shogdzhiev, the world No 5, Nodirbek Abdusattorov, Argentina’s Faustino Oro and Turkey’s Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus, alongside Sivanandan. The piece notes that Shogdzhiev, like Sivanandan, was born in 2015.

The article details Shogdzhiev’s development pathway: his coaching team, led by GM Evgeny Tomashevsky, staged periodic blitz tournaments in Moscow, and his final IM norm was organised at a norm factory in Serbia. He has since registered two of the three required grandmaster norms—one at the Asian Championship in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, and another in the Serbian League—and now needs one more norm plus a 2500 rating to surpass Abhimanyu Mishra’s world age record for youngest grandmaster, with the piece noting he could do so before his 12th birthday in February 2027.

England’s IM Richard Pert produced a headline result in Budva when he defeated GM Jorden van Foreest, who is rated 2716 and listed as world No 24, in Cheddleton Savills Catering’s round three match against SuperChess Romania. Pert, 45 and an ECF national chess coach, reached a 6/6 match score before Friday’s final round and followed up with another quick win in round five. The report records Pert’s winning sequence: van Foreest, who opened the game with 2…h6 and 4…a6, was level at move 24 but blundered with 24…Rd6?? instead of 24…Rd5, lost a piece after 25 a4 and resigned when 25…Nd4 would allow 26 Bb4 skewering Black’s rooks.

Cheddleton Savills Catering, seeded 16th, have won five of their six matches by wide margins following an opening round in Budva that saw two other English teams lose 6-0. They face Israeli champions Rishon LeZion, whose top board is former world title challenger Boris Gelfand, in Friday’s final round and retain an outside chance of a medal in the competition.

In other tournament news cited in the report, the London Chess Classic is scheduled from 25 November to 4 December with entry and competitor details available, and the US Championship in Saint Louis moved to a rapid and blitz playoff after Fabiano Caruana caught Wesley So in the final round. So won the playoff 1.5-0.5; he had led by a point before round 11 and faced Samuel Sevian, who after his win said: "He is really good in setting tricks in shorter time controls, but in classical I kind of figure out his little ideas." Final open scores listed So (playoff winner) and Caruana 7/11, Jeffery Xiong and Grigory Oparin 6.5, Andy Woodward 6, Mishra, Levon Aronian and Awonder Liang 5.5, with Hans Niemann joint 10th on 4/11. In the women’s event Rachael Li finished 8.5/11, Alice Lee 8 and Irina Krush 7.5; the holder Carissa Yip was equal seventh on 4.5, and the report notes Li, 16, is the youngest first-time US women’s champion while Krush was 14 when she won her first US title in 1998.

Sivanandan’s immediate focus is Friday’s final-round game in Budva, broadcast on lichess from 1pm BST; a win against the 2034-rated opponent or a draw versus the 2116-rated opponent will secure her third IM norm, the international master title and the breaking of Judit Polgar’s 38-year-old age record.