In his last game, Tani blundered on one move, but before his opponent reacted, Tani extended his hand and offered a draw - neither a win nor a loss. In one game, recalling a Morphy tactic, Tani sacrificed a bishop to gain an advantage. In March 2019, Tani entered the K-3 division of the New York State Scholastic Chess Championships in upstate Saratoga Springs and won five games in a row. "That’s probably one of the best games in history," he said, seemingly unimpressed with himself.
YOUNGEST CHESS GRANDMASTER FULL
Tani's ability to memorize a full game indicated genuine talent. "I remember being so impressed and so in shock," Martinez told Newsday. He said Tani approached and said, "Coach Shawn, look what I remember."Īt a chessboard, Tani played out each move of a famous game between 19th century American chess master Paul Morphy and his father. Patrick's Cathedral in Manhattan.Īt chess camp in the summer of 2018, just weeks before Tani turned 8, coach Shawn Martinez experienced an epiphany about his student. The family attended services at City of Refuge in Queens and at St.
YOUNGEST CHESS GRANDMASTER DRIVER
Then Kayode rented a car to work as an Uber driver while he studied for a real estate license. Later, the couple teamed up to clean apartments. Kayode took an overnight job washing dishes at a Bronx restaurant. Twice a week, Oluwatoyin rode buses and subways to use a kitchen at the Rosedale church to prepare Nigerian dishes for her family. Tani also did chess puzzles on his mom's cellphone. Sometimes, after the family gathered for their nightly ritual of prayer and songs, the boys stayed up to play chess. She told club organizers that the family lived in a homeless shelter, and coach Russ Makofsky waived the $330 fee.īack in Nigeria, Austin had once shown Tani a crude version of chess with pieces made of paper.
At PS 116, Tani saw a flyer for a chess club. government for asylum, allowing them to stay in the country legally.īoth boys entered public schools. The parents stayed in a room on one floor, and Tani and Austin in a room on another. They rode a bus to New York, where Phillip Falayi, a Nigerian immigrant and the pastor of Hosanna City of Refuge Church in Rosedale, Queens, helped the family enter a Manhattan homeless shelter. Ferrara (family) Adewumi Family (chess club and brothers in Nigeria) Petition for asylum
Five-year-old Tani, left, with his brother, Austin, in Abuja, Nigeria. Tani was 7 when he joined the chess club at PS 116 in Manhattan. Over the following months, the men returned, shouting and banging on the doors of the family home in Abuja and again 200 miles away in Akure, where the family had gone to hide.Ĭlockwise from above: The Adewumi family, from left, Kayode, Oluwatoyin, Tani and Austin, met former President Bill Clinton, a moment proudly displayed in their Port Jefferson Station home. Oluwatoyin, raised Muslim, begged the men in Arabic to leave. The men flipped furniture in search of Kayode's laptop. Weeks later, two men burst into the Adewumi home and threatened Oluwatoyin at gunpoint while the boys slept. When the militants returned to Kayode's office, where he displayed a crucifix on a wall, he pretended his computers were broken and gave back the flash drive. The Adewumis are Roman Catholic and deeply religious. The men were from the deadly Boko Haram terror network. Kayode said he was shaken when he plugged their flash drive into his computer and found the poster said, "Kill All Christians" and "No to Western Education." The family said its troubles began back in 2015, when four men entered the print shop Kayode owned in the Nigerian capital of Abuja with an order for 25,000 posters. And all of that served as a backdrop to Tani's astonishing rise to a chess master celebrated in TV, internet and print media. Over the past six years, they have gone from being targets of anti-Christian terrorists in Nigeria to homeless refugees in Manhattan to residents of their own home in Port Jefferson Station. Their airport episode was just a blip in the remarkable odyssey of the Adewumi family - Oluwatoyin, 40 her husband, Kayode, 45 and their sons, Austin, 18, and Tani, now 11. By clicking Sign up, you agree to our privacy policy.
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