“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.” “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,” Tani’s father, Kayode Adewumi, who works as a real estate agent, tells CNN Sport. When word spread of Tani’s state championship title, an outpouring of financial support for his family followed. 116 in New York, on the agreement that the registration fee could be waived. They lived in a homeless shelter in Manhattan after moving to the United States, and shortly afterward Tani joined the chess club at his school, P.S. In June 2017, nearly two years before he won the state championship title, Tani and his family fled northern Nigeria, worried about attacks by extremist group Boko Haram. “That’s the one that really boosted us up to become where we are today, and also me and my chess,” says Tani. His success in chess has so far yielded a growing collection of trophies, the most treasured of which is the title he won at the New York State chess championship in 2019 - not necessarily because of the way he played, but because it changed his family’s life forever. He attends school in New York, then practices for seven hours when he gets home when he doesn’t have school, he can practice for eight, nine, or sometimes even 10 hours a day. That record currently belongs to 12-year-old Abhimanyu Mishra, but Tani is putting in the hours to try to get there faster. Having become a national master earlier this year - the 28th youngest person to achieve that title - he now wants to become the game’s youngest ever grandmaster.

Tani, who turned 11 in September, is taking the same approach with his chess career. “It’s just the way I think in general: I want to checkmate my opponent as fast as I can.” “I’m aggressive, I like to attack,” he tells CNN Sport of his playing style.

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