A boy by the name of Tanitoluwa “Tani” Adewumi might seem like your average child, but he is one of the greatest chess prodigies at the age of 11. Before finding his gift playing chess, his family fled from northern Nigeria in 2017 to escape extremists taking over their region.
Tani’s family didn’t have many resources when they came to America and lived in a Manhattan homeless shelter. Shortly after arriving in America, Tani joined his chess team at his school, P.S. 116, with an agreement that his registration fee was waived.
Tani enjoyed playing chess leading to long practice times of seven hours after he gets home from school and practices for 8-10 hours on days when he isn’t at school. All this practice resulted in winning many tournaments with a massive collection of trophies including one for the New York State chess championship in 2019.
Earlier this year, Tani became a national master and is the 28th youngest person to achieve the high-status title with the goal of becoming the youngest chess grandmaster ever. The record currently is held by Abhimanyu Mishraac at the age of 12 and Tani believes he can achieve the title by dedicating hours to practice.
Following the news of Tani claiming the state championship, his family received a surprising outpour of financial support for his family that allowed them to find a place to call home to get out of the shelter. Tani’s father, Kayode Adewumi, reveals, “One family, they paid for a year’s rent in Manhattan, one family gave us in 2019 a brand-new Honda, and the Saint Louis Chess Club in Missouri invited the family and the coaches to come and pay a visit. A lot of people really helped us, a lot of people gave us financial (support) and money … they donated money for us to get out from the shelter.”
The family also received a lot of support from a GoFundMe page that has raised over $250,000 surpassing their goal of $50,000 that will provide funding for housing, educational, and legal funds for the Tanitoluwa Adewumi Foundation. The foundation is in honor of Tani with the goal of supporting underprivileged children around the world.
The family values how the game of chess changed their lives and is contributing funds to a chess organization in Africa to encourage more people to play chess. Tani is continuing his dream of becoming a grandmaster while helping to support his family and his namesake foundation to help children worldwide.