Eight year old girl wins European chess championship

[ArabellaScott]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-67770604

Congratulations, Bodhana Sivanandan!

8 years old female champion - amazing.

There's been so many incidents lately that I was sure this was going to be a "girl".

It's nice to see an real girl achieving during a competition - well done!

Well done Bodhana!

Blimey! Was it an all-ages competition? (Looks like it was)

Yes, pope!

And for once, seeing something positive coming out of lockdown.

What a fab girl, well done to her.

Brilliant!

An amazing achievement for such a young girl

That's brilliant

Congratulations Bodhana!

My three chess-loving girls (aged 7-11) were really chuffed about this news.

Amazing!! Go Bodhana!!

Great news

What a wee star!!

Have to admit I opened this expecting it to be a male.

Me too.

I always wonder if these types of stories turn out to be exaggerated, but it this case it appears to be a truly astonishing result. The tournament (European Blitz Chess Championships) had more than 500 players, it was all ages, men and women competing together. Bodhana finished in 73rd place and won the title of best female player in the tournament. She finished ahead of some professional players and in the last two rounds beat a (male) International Master and drew with a (male) Grandmaster. An amazing achievement for an 8-year-old. And really nobody should have any doubts any more that in "mind sports" like Chess, Bridge and Go women/girls can play just as well as men/boys. The full results of this chess event are at:

Thanks, Tedious.

And really nobody should have any doubts any more that in "mind sports" like Chess, Bridge and Go women/girls can play just as well as men/boys.

That seems somewhat unsupported given that the first female in the event was 73rd out of 500 overall.

There are a lot of reasons why women and girls may be at a disadvantage, including social expectations and the exclusionary nature of grass roots clubs and competitions.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4874238-chess-is-a-feminist-issue

That's fantastic news!

Maybe, maybe some girls are getting to be single minded in their interests instead of being socialized into playing roles for other people.

How brilliant is that !

there've been female fields medal (maths) winners and a female chess player has scraped into the world's top 100 (which would be totally impossible in eg sprinting or weightlifting) so I do very strongly suspect that with equality of opportunity a woman could one day make it to the very top in chess. i won't be holding my breath for that though...

Wonderful!

Amazing!

Such an achievement and so young.
If you've not watched it, I enjoyed the whimsical Queen's Gambit on Netflix about a young girl who becomes a chess prodigy.

Levy (aka GothamChess, the biggest chess YouTuber) did a video on her:

Congratulations Bodhana! Amazing.