A 10-year-old Nigerian refugee living in New York recently became one of America’s youngest chess masters.
Tanitoluwa Adewumi competed at the Fairfield County Chess Club Championship tournament in Connecticut on May 1, and bumped his chess rating up to 2223, the United States Chess Federation reported this month. A rating of 2200 is required to gain the chess master title.
“I was very happy that I won and that I got the title,”Adewumi said. “I really love that I finally got it.”
Adewumi first garnered national attention more than two years ago when he won his category at the New York State chess championship in 2019. A the time, Adewumi, then 8 years old, was living at homeless shelter in Manhattan.
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An inspiring story
As reported two years ago in our news page, it all started with a Sunday opinion column in the New York Times: a story about an 8-year-old Nigerian refugee who was living with his family in a homeless shelter and just returned from the New York State Scholastic Chess Championship, in Saratoga Springs, NY, with a trophy “almost as big as he is”.
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Since then, things have only improved for the talented kid from Nigeria. A GoFundMe campaign was set up for the family by Russel Makofsky, who oversaw the chess program at Tani’s elementary school, and it was linked by
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A 10-year-old refugee named Tani Adewumi has just earned an elite ranking in the world of chess, winning the title of National Chess Master.
Just a few years ago, little Tani had a very uncertain future as a refugee whose homeless family had fled to the U.S. to escape from an Islamic terrorist death threat in Nigeria.
Now, he has just won all four of his matches at the Fairfield County Chess Club Championship tournament in Connecticut. The U.S. Chess Federation says that victory on May 1st earned him the title of chess master , making him the 28th youngest person to achieve that high ranking.
Tanitoluwa Adewumi, a 10-year-old in New York, just became the country s newest national chess master.
At the Fairfield County Chess Club Championship tournament in Connecticut on May 1, Adewumi won all four of his matches, bumping his chess rating up to 2223 and making him the 28th youngest person to become a chess master, according to US Chess. I was very happy that I won and that I got the title, he says, I really love that I finally got it. Finally is after about three years the amount of time that Adewumi has been playing chess. When he started, Adewumi and his family were living in a homeless shelter in Manhattan after fleeing religious persecution by the Islamist militant group Boko Haram in their home country of Nigeria.