Tanitoluwa Adewumi

Tanitoluwa Emmanuel Adewumi (born September 3, 2010) is a Nigerian-born chess player who lives in New York City. He won the 2019 K-3 New York State chess championship at the age of eight, after playing the game for only a year, while living with his refugee family in a homeless shelter in Manhattan.

Tanitoluwa Adewumi
Adewumi (left), receiving 2019 Tribeca Disruptive Innovation award as his father applauds
CountryUnited States
Born (2010-09-03) September 3, 2010[1]
Nigeria
TitleNone
FIDE rating1730[lower-alpha 1]
Peak rating1730 (February 2020)[2]

Early life

Tanitoluwa is the son of Kayode James Adewumi (born June 24, 1976, Ado Ekiti, Nigeria) and Oluwatoyin Kuburat Adewumi (born June 16, 1981, Ado Ekiti). He has a brother, Adesina Austin, who is seven years older.[3] Kayode used to run a print shop in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, with 13 employees,[4][5] and Oluwatoyin used to work as an accountant.[3] The family is devoutly Christian, and were threatened with violence by the Islamist terrorist organization Boko Haram.[5] In June 2017, they left Nigeria for the United States and sought religious asylum. Philip Falayi, a pastor in Queens, New York, gave them temporary accommodation, and connected them with the New York City Department of Homeless Services. They were given a place to stay in a homeless shelter in Manhattan.[5] Kayode took work as a dishwasher and as an Uber driver in a rented car, and Oluwatoyin as a cleaner;[6][lower-alpha 2] and Tanitoluwa enrolled in elementary school P.S. 116.[7]

Career

Austin had taught Tanitoluwa a chess-like game called "Latter", using a homemade board and pieces made from Play-Doh.[4] Shawn Martinez, a teacher at P.S. 116, is a chess enthusiast who introduces students to the game. Tanitoluwa immediately took to it, and wanted to join a club run by Russell Makofsky, another teacher. That would have been expensive; the $330 fee[5] includes not only the cost of running the club, but also such things as entries to tournaments, travel, and accommodation. When Adewumi's mother told Makofsky of the family's financial situation, he waived the fee.[7][8] In early 2018, Adewumi, who had the lowest Elo rating of 105, played in his first tournament. A year later, he had accumulated seven trophies. The teachers, now his coaches, were impressed by his dedication and hard work, and by the progress he had made since starting as a novice.[7]

On March 9–10, 2019, he competed in the 52nd Annual New York State Scholastic Championships (kindergarten-3rd grade division) in Saratoga Springs, New York. He was seeded eighth in a field of 74, with an Elo rating of 1473; more than 200 behind the top rated players.[9] Some of the contestants were from well-to-do families who could afford private coaches.[7] He won the event outright with a score of 5.5/6 (five wins, one draw, no losses).[9][10][11] His style of play is aggressive: his coaches were shocked when in his fourth game he sacrificed a bishop for a pawn; alarmed, they fed the position into a chess engine for analysis. It confirmed that the sacrifice was the best move.[7][12]

The story was reported by Nicholas Kristof in the New York Times,[7] and rapidly attracted national[12][13][14] and international[15][16][17] attention both inside and outside the chess world. agadmator, a leading YouTube chess streamer, published an analysis of Adewumi's only available game from the tournament.[18][9][lower-alpha 3] Garry Kasparov, former World Chess Champion, praised this achievement by a refugee immigrant.[19] Bill Clinton, former US president, invited him to visit him in his office in Harlem, New York,[20] and he did.[21] Abike Dabiri, Senior Special Assistant on Foreign Affairs and Diaspora to Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari, called him "a pride to the nation".[22][23] On March 30, 2019, he visited the Saint Louis Chess Club in Missouri, where the U.S. Chess Championship was then in progress, and played several friendly blitz (5 minutes for each player) games, his opponents including Hikaru Nakamura (GM, five-time U.S. Chess Champion), Jennifer Yu (WGM, 2019 U.S. Women's Chess Champion), and Fabiano Caruana (GM, who had challenged the titleholder, Magnus Carlsen, for the World Chess Championship in November 2018), and was interviewed by Maurice Ashley, the world's first black GM.[24]

His coaches set up a GoFundMe site shortly after the 2019 New York Scholastics, with the target of raising $50,000 for the family by crowdfunding. It raised $254,000 in ten days.[5][25] Benefactors also offered non-monetary help; including accommodation, a car, academic scholarships, chess books, and pro bono (i.e. free) assistance by immigration lawyers with their asylum application. They accepted one of the more modest offers of accommodation, declined the scholarship offers out of loyalty to P.S. 116, gave one-tenth of the donated money as a tithe to the church which had helped them, and put the rest into a 501(c)(3) trust called the Tanitoluwa Adewumi Foundation to help other children in similar circumstances.[8]

He has expressed an ambition to become the youngest ever chess grandmaster.[7][lower-alpha 4] Three film companies competed for the rights to his story;[8] Paramount Pictures won.[26] An autobiography, My Name Is Tani, was published on 14 April 2020.[27]

Commentary

The media criticism organization Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting has criticized mainstream media coverage about Adewumi's homeless-to-chess-champion path, including Kristof's article as well as others from the USA Today, NBC New York, and The Independent; the institution has cited it as an example of "perseverance porn" pieces, which don't question the causes of the tough circumstances the person or people covered faces but rather try to uplift the reader: "The Times [article] details Adewumi’s refugee background, his personal drive and his aggressive playing style, but neither it nor the many other outlets [...] that also picked up the story pondered how it was possible for a child in one of the richest cities in the world to be homeless, and what that said about an economic and political system that allows this in the first place."[28]

Notes
  1. As of February 2020.[2]
  2. By March 2019, Kayode was working as an Uber driver and as a licensed real estate salesman, and Oluwatoyin as a qualified home health aide.[7]
  3. Not the game with the bishop sacrifice.
  4. As of March 2020, Sergey Karjakin is the youngest person to have achieved the title of grandmaster (12 years 7 months), and Samuel Sevian is the youngest American to have done so (13 years 10 months 27 days).
gollark: Anyway, I am going to bed FAR too late but goodbye ish.
gollark: * actually quite bad in several ways
gollark: * bad
gollark: Yes, they're GMT+1 right now I think?
gollark: I disagree with this plan and *may* be forced to initiate ACETIC SUMMONER protocols.

References
  1. "About Tanitoluwa Emmanuel Adewumi". Tanitoluwa Adewumi Foundation. Retrieved March 13, 2020.
  2. "Adewumi, Tanitoluwa". FIDE. Retrieved February 19, 2020.
  3. "Our Team". Tanitoluwa Adewumi Foundation. Retrieved March 9, 2020.
  4. Chan, Melina (October 16, 2019). "A 9-Year-Old Refugee Wins NY Chess Championship That Changed His Life". The Epoch Times. Retrieved February 19, 2020.
  5. Blair, Elizabeth (March 12, 2020). "This Young Chess Champion Is 'Not Scared Of Anything On That Board'". NPR. Retrieved March 15, 2020.
  6. Adewumi, Tanitoluwa (April 14, 2020). My Name Is Tani . . . and I Believe in Miracles: The Amazing True Story of One Boy’s Journey from Refugee to Chess Champion. Adewumi, Kayode; Adewumi, Oluwatoyin; Borlase, Craig (contributors). Thomas Nelson. ISBN 978-0785232711.
  7. Kristof, Nicholas (March 16, 2019). "This 8-Year-Old Chess Champion Will Make You Smile". New York Times. Retrieved February 19, 2020.
  8. Kristof, Nicholas (March 23, 2019). "Our Chess Champion Has a Home". New York Times. Retrieved February 19, 2020.
  9. Hater, Colonel David A. (March 19, 2019). "Tani Wins at NYS Scholastic Championships". United States Chess Federation. Retrieved February 26, 2020.
  10. Peterson, Macauley (March 26, 2019). "Homeless immigrant family finds a home thanks to chess". ChessBase. Retrieved February 19, 2020.
  11. "NY State Scholastic Championships 2019 Standings – Primary Championship". chessevents.com. Retrieved February 26, 2020.
  12. Today, NBC (March 19, 2019). "8-Year-Old Chess Champ And Homeless Refugee Gets Fairytale Ending" (video). Retrieved March 1, 2020.
  13. "Homeless 3rd grader aims to become youngest chess grandmaster". CBS (video). March 18, 2019. Retrieved February 28, 2020.
  14. Lou, Michelle; Ahmed, Saeed (March 20, 2019). "A homeless 8-year-old, who learned to play a year ago, is now a New York chess champion". CNN. Retrieved February 19, 2020.
  15. "This Nigerian boy just became a chess champion in New York". BBC. London, UK. March 18, 2019. Retrieved February 19, 2020.
  16. Team Latestly (March 18, 2019). "Homeless 8-year-old Refugee Child Tanitoluwa Adewumi Becomes New York Chess Champion!". latestly.com. India. Retrieved February 26, 2020.
  17. Pozzi, Sandro (March 21, 2019). "El niño refugiado que aspira a gran maestro". El País (in Spanish). Madrid, Spain. Retrieved February 26, 2020.
  18. agadmator (March 19, 2019). 8-year-old Homeless Refugee Tani Wins New York State Championship. YouTube (video). Retrieved February 28, 2020.
  19. Kasparov, Garry (March 22, 2019). "The heart-warming tale of the 8-year-old chess champion is quintessentially American". Retrieved February 26, 2020.
  20. Bill Clinton [@billclinton] (March 19, 2019). "Refugees enrich our nation and talent is universal, even if opportunity is not" (Tweet). Retrieved February 28, 2020 – via Twitter.
  21. Nicholas Kristof [@nickkristof] (March 26, 2019). "So cool!" (Tweet). Retrieved February 28, 2020 – via Twitter.
  22. Mumuni, Mikail (March 25, 2019). "Dabiri-Erewa eulogises 8-year old Nigerian US Chess Champion". The State Online. Retrieved February 23, 2020.
  23. Olowolagba, Fikayo (March 25, 2019). "Tanitoluwa Adewunmi: Presidency speaks on 8-year-old Nigerian Chess Champion". Daily Post. Retrieved February 26, 2020.
  24. "2019 U.S. Chess Championships: Tanitoluwa "Tani" Adewumi Interview". Saint Louis Chess Club (video). March 30, 2019. Retrieved March 6, 2020.
  25. Akhalbey, Francis (April 17, 2019). "8-yr-old homeless Nigerian chess champ in NYC moves into new home after massive support". Face2Face Africa. Retrieved February 28, 2020.
  26. Fleming, Mike Jr. (November 1, 2019). "Homeless 8-Year Old Nigerian Chess Prodigy Who Won NY State Championship Checkmates Paramount Movie Deal With 'Daily Show's Trevor Noah Among Producers". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved February 27, 2020.
  27. Adewumi, Tanitoluwa (April 14, 2020). "My Name Is Tani . . . and I Believe in Miracles: The Amazing True Story of One Boy's Journey from Refugee to Chess Champion". Adewumi, Kayode; Adewumi, Oluwatoyin; Borlase, Craig (contributors). Thomas Nelson. ISBN 978-0785232711.
  28. MacLeod, Alan (March 25, 2019). "The Homeless 8-Year-Old Chess Champion and Other Horrific 'Uplifting' Stories". Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting. Retrieved May 21, 2020.
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