Shreyas Royal Becomes Youngest Ever British Chess Champion

A new generation took over at the top of British chess on Sunday, when a trio of youthful talents demonstrated their skills on a national stage. Shreyas Royal, 17, of Dartford, Kent, became the youngest ever British champion, breaking Michael Adams’s 1989 record by two months and underlining his status as an emerging world-class talent. Bodhana Sivanandan, aged 11, and Supratit Banerjee, 12, also delivered memorable performances.

First prize at the University of Warwick, Coventry, was £10,000.

The established grandmasters did not go gently into that good night. Adams finished just short of what he needed to equal Jonathan Penrose’s record of 10 championship wins, while top-seeded Luke McShane also tied for second, half a point behind Royal. (Correction: Adams’s 38-year unbeaten record in British Championships was 118 games, not 87 as stated here last week.)

The final British Championship scores were Royal 7.5/9, Adams and McShane 7, Harry Grieve, Svyatoslav Bazakutsa (Ukraine), Siva Mahadevan (India) and Simon Williams 6.5, Banerjee and nine others on 6. Sivanandan and Trisha Kanyamarala (Ireland) tied for the British women’s title, which was incorporated into the open competition, with 5.5/9. Sivanandan won the playoff 1.5-0.5.

Royal’s family immigrated from India when he was aged three, but his father’s IT work visa ran out in 2018 and it required high-level government intervention, sparked by the boy’s chess promise, to renew it. At 15, Royal broke David Howell’s record as England’s youngest ever GM.

His championship title was an impressive result. He was the only unbeaten player among the 107 competitors, and his performance rating of 2688, close to the elite 2700 level, was highlighted by a crucial win against McShane, achieved in imaginative style, with its zenith 22 Rd4!

Royal’s achievement would have earned a place in the five-man England squad for next month’s 210-team world Olympiad in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, but the entry deadline for that was mid-July when his official Fide rating was below other contenders. The fifth selection, GM Dan Fernandez, bypassed the British Championship but won a strong international tournament at Vlissingen in the Netherlands, which had coincidental dates to Coventry.

Royal’s career-best performances until now have been in the 2024 British Championship, where he scored his third and final GM norm, and in 2025, when he won the prestigious Tournament of Peace at Zagreb, Croatia. Some of his other results have been uneven, which explains why his Fide world rating will only rise to 2533 after Coventry. This may restrict his international invitations.

One way to capitalise on his new breakthrough could be via matches against elite opponents. USA’s Hans Niemann successfully did that when campaigning for the world top 20, while Turkey’s prodigy Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus, aged 15, has recently followed suit, also with positive results.

It would be interesting to see a six-game match between the ambitious Royal and England’s top-rated active grandmaster Nikita Vitiugov, currently rated 2666 but formerly above the elite 2700 level, who did not compete in Coventry but is the likely top board for England in next month’s Olympiad. The championship title would not be at stake, since that is decided only by the annual tournament. If Royal did well, it would immediately strengthen his credentials as a global rising star, and in the worst case it would be valuable experience.

The finance for such a match could come from the Department of Culture, Media and Sport’s new Elite Chess Fund of £250,000 a year till 2029, given its stated objectives include to promote diversity.

Bodhana Sivanandan’s victory in the British Women’s Championship was also a standout result. Her only defeat in nine games was to Royal, and she ended just a point short of her second IM norm and only half a point short of a world age record women’s grandmaster title. She now possesses the triple crown of reigning UK women’s blitz champion, joint women’s rapid champion and national women’s champion at classical chess.

There has been debate over whether Sivanandan should play top board for England in next month’s 190-team women’s Olympiad in Samarkand, but she surely answered that with her mature and assured performance last week.

Sivanandan’s round-four win against GM Ameet Ghasi, which last week’s Guardian column dubbed the female equivalent of Bobby Fischer’s 1956 Game of the Century, was further honoured by the award of the Alexander Prize of £100 for the best game in the British Championship.

Supratit Banerjee, 12, narrowly missed the International Master title on Sunday in Coventry but made no mistake just three days later in Sweden. The Sutton Grammar pupil lost his first-round game on Tuesday at the Hotel Stockholm North GM Invitation, but won in both rounds two and three to complete the 2400 rating requirement for IM after gaining his third and final norm at Coventry.

Banerjee’s overall performance and his alert tactical style at 12 years and five months harked back to the glory days of England’s first grandmaster, the legendary Tony Miles, who was also known for competing in successive events without a break. McShane and Howell were the previous English IM age record holders, at 13 years and two months. Royal did it at 13 years and seven months, and Nigel Short at 14 years six months.

Much more information about the three prodigies is included in the Chess.com report by Tarjei Svensen.

Coventry was a vintage British Championship, with a record 2000+ entry across all events, smooth English Chess Federation organisation, high-class commentary from GMs Danny Gormally and Nick Pert, and a truly memorable outcome.

Meanwhile two of the strongest global tournaments are in action this week, and will be covered in next week’s column. The Sinquefield Cup began in St Louis, US, on Monday with Uzbekistan’s world-title challenger Javokhir Sindarov and the US world No 2 Fabiano Caruana the favourites, while the Esports World Cup, with world No 1 Magnus Carlsen the top seed, started in Paris on Tuesday. Carlsen has reached Friday’s quarter-finals, along with world No 2 Hikaru Nakamura, world No 7 Nodirbek Abdusattorov, and world No 10 Alireza Firouzja.

Relations between the two events are strained, due to their clash of dates and the decision of France’s Firouzja to break his St Louis commitment in favour of Paris.