Tani Adewumi clinches first IM norm in New York

by Carlos Alberto Colodro
4/20/2022 – The ever-smiling Nigerian boy who made it to the news a bit over three years ago continues to climb the rating ladder. Tanitoluwa Adewumi, better known as Tani, is 11 years old and has just grabbed his first IM norm at the New York Spring Invitational. Once a refugee escaping a terrorist group, he is now a household name in the chess world. | Photo: Kayode Adewumi

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The kid who believes in miracles

Tanitoluwa AdewumiOnly three years ago, Tani Adewumi’s family was still living in a New York City homeless shelter. A story published on March 16, 2019 in the New York Times turned their lives around.

At 8, Tani had just won the New York State Scholastic Chess Championship in his age group with a 5½/6 score. Impressively, the boy performed that well only a year after having learned the rules of the game. A GoFundMe campaign was set up for the family by Russel Makofsky, who oversaw the chess program at Tani’s elementary school, raising over $200,000 in a few days’ time.

Tani’s parents are devout Christians and decided to donate part of the money raised to the church that helped them out when they arrived to the United States. They also created a foundation to assist struggling African immigrants.

Since then, the ever-smiling boy has become a household name in the chess world. Besides being invited to visit Bill Clinton at his office in Harlem, Tani has played several blitz games against Fabiano Caruana and Hikaru Nakamura, and has been part of the Kasparov Chess Foundation’s Young Stars program.  

Now, at 11, Tani has earned his first IM norm at the New York Spring Invitational.

[Photo: Tanitoluwa Adewumi’s Twitter profile]

Tani scores 7/9, gains 127 rating points

Four parallel tournaments were organized in New York City on April 14-18. In the top event, including three GMs, IM Jason Lian grabbed a grandmaster norm, while Maximillian Lu, Bach Ngo and Tanitoluwa Adewuni obtained IM norms in the three remaining round-robin tournaments.

Lu was the third seed in the IM-B event and Ngo was the fourth highest-rated player in the IM-C event, while Tani was only seventh in the IM-D 10-player tournament. The 11-year-old nonetheless scored 7 out of 9 to get the coveted norm, finishing undefeated and gaining no less than 127.6 rating points. A remarkable performance by an impressively quick learner!

In round 4, Tani defeated FM Aaron Jacobson with the white pieces. Black was worse out of the opening, and by move 27, forcing tactics favouring White began to appear on the board.

 
Adewumi vs. Jacobson - Round 4

Tani found 26.d5 Rxd5 27.Bxa7, not fearing 27...b6 since after 28.Rxd5 Qxd5 another pawn push allowed him to keep his material edge — 29.e6

 

The rest was easy for the teenager, who thus grabbed his fourth consecutive win. It will certainly be a memorable tournament for the Nigerian-American rising star!

Final standings - IM D

Rk. Name Pts.  TB1 
1 PARAGUA Mark 7,0 0,5
2 ADEWUMI Tanitoluwa 7,0 0,5
3 WANG Eigen 6,0 0,0
4 JACOBSON Aaron 5,5 0,0
5 SAVANOVIC Aleksandar 5,0 0,5
6 CSONKA Attila Istvan 5,0 0,5
7 CERVANTES LANDEIRO Thalia 3,5 0,0
8 YANG Qindong 3,0 0,0
9 ESPINOSA Pedro 1,5 0,5
10 DANS Dwight 1,5 0,5

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1.e4 4 e6 7 2.d4 9 d5 0 3.Nc3 5 Nf6 8 4.e5 53 Nfd7 6 5.f4 10 c5 6 6.Nf3 15 Nc6 7 7.Be3 18 cxd4 0 8.Nxd4 6 Bc5 12 9.Qd2 59 0-0 19 10.Be2 2:55 Qe7 13:14 11.0-0 8:58 f6 6:12 12.exf6 35 Nxf6 0 13.Kh1 4:32 Bb4 5:43 14.Bd3 10:40 e5 9:18 15.Nxc6 12:20 bxc6 11 16.fxe5 6 Qxe5 2:00 17.Bd4 4:00 Qh5 0 18.Bxf6 4:49 Bd6 12:55 19.g4 32:43 Bxg4 20.Bd4 Rf3 21.Bg1 10:36 Raf8 12:49 22.Rae1 1:02 Bg3 18:15 23.Bc5 4:26 Bxe1 0 24.Rxe1 1:58 Rxd3 1:11 25.cxd3 2:20 Bf3+ 7 26.Kg1 2 Qg4+ 25 27.Kf2 8 Qg2+ 1:12 28.Ke3 5 Qg5+ 0 0–1
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WhiteEloWBlackEloBResYearECOEventRnd
SAVANOVIC,A2387WANG,E22420–12022C112022 New York Spring Invitational IM D1
CSONKA,A2339YANG,Q2126½–½2022B532022 New York Spring Invitational IM D1
ESPINOSA,P2129ADEWUMI,T21770–12022E182022 New York Spring Invitational IM D1
CERVANTES LANDEIRO,T2206PARAGUA,M24600–12022E812022 New York Spring Invitational IM D1
DANS,D1992JACOBSON,A22630–12022A132022 New York Spring Invitational IM D1
WANG,E2242JACOBSON,A22631–02022A612022 New York Spring Invitational IM D2
PARAGUA,M2460DANS,D19921–02022C002022 New York Spring Invitational IM D2
ADEWUMI,T2177CERVANTES LANDEIRO,T22061–02022C542022 New York Spring Invitational IM D2
YANG,Q2126ESPINOSA,P21291–02022D112022 New York Spring Invitational IM D2
SAVANOVIC,A2387CSONKA,A2339½–½2022B472022 New York Spring Invitational IM D2
CSONKA,A2339WANG,E2242½–½2022C062022 New York Spring Invitational IM D3
ESPINOSA,P2129SAVANOVIC,A23870–12022E112022 New York Spring Invitational IM D3
CERVANTES LANDEIRO,T2206YANG,Q21261–02022E142022 New York Spring Invitational IM D3
DANS,D1992ADEWUMI,T21770–12022A252022 New York Spring Invitational IM D3
JACOBSON,A2263PARAGUA,M2460½–½2022B472022 New York Spring Invitational IM D3
WANG,E2242PARAGUA,M24600–12022A612022 New York Spring Invitational IM D4
ADEWUMI,T2177JACOBSON,A22631–02022C542022 New York Spring Invitational IM D4
YANG,Q2126DANS,D19920–12022E732022 New York Spring Invitational IM D4
SAVANOVIC,A2387CERVANTES LANDEIRO,T22061–02022C672022 New York Spring Invitational IM D4
CSONKA,A2339ESPINOSA,P21291–02022B532022 New York Spring Invitational IM D4
ESPINOSA,P2129WANG,E22421–02022C102022 New York Spring Invitational IM D5
CERVANTES LANDEIRO,T2206CSONKA,A2339½–½2022E152022 New York Spring Invitational IM D5
DANS,D1992SAVANOVIC,A23870–12022E112022 New York Spring Invitational IM D5
JACOBSON,A2263YANG,Q21260–12022B962022 New York Spring Invitational IM D5
PARAGUA,M2460ADEWUMI,T2177½–½2022B402022 New York Spring Invitational IM D5
WANG,E2242ADEWUMI,T2177½–½2022E122022 New York Spring Invitational IM D6
YANG,Q2126PARAGUA,M24600–12022E682022 New York Spring Invitational IM D6
SAVANOVIC,A2387JACOBSON,A22630–12022C182022 New York Spring Invitational IM D6
CSONKA,A2339DANS,D19921–02022B532022 New York Spring Invitational IM D6
ESPINOSA,P2129CERVANTES LANDEIRO,T22060–12022D002022 New York Spring Invitational IM D6
CERVANTES LANDEIRO,T2206WANG,E22420–12022A582022 New York Spring Invitational IM D7
DANS,D1992ESPINOSA,P2129½–½2022A122022 New York Spring Invitational IM D7
JACOBSON,A2263CSONKA,A23391–02022E152022 New York Spring Invitational IM D7
PARAGUA,M2460SAVANOVIC,A2387½–½2022C262022 New York Spring Invitational IM D7
ADEWUMI,T2177YANG,Q21261–02022B512022 New York Spring Invitational IM D7
WANG,E2242YANG,Q21261–02022D022022 New York Spring Invitational IM D8
SAVANOVIC,A2387ADEWUMI,T2177½–½2022B852022 New York Spring Invitational IM D8
CSONKA,A2339PARAGUA,M2460½–½2022B532022 New York Spring Invitational IM D8
ESPINOSA,P2129JACOBSON,A22630–12022D452022 New York Spring Invitational IM D8
CERVANTES LANDEIRO,T2206DANS,D19921–02022E762022 New York Spring Invitational IM D8
DANS,D1992WANG,E22420–12022C032022 New York Spring Invitational IM D9
JACOBSON,A2263CERVANTES LANDEIRO,T22061–02022D262022 New York Spring Invitational IM D9
PARAGUA,M2460ESPINOSA,P21291–02022B532022 New York Spring Invitational IM D9
ADEWUMI,T2177CSONKA,A2339½–½2022B132022 New York Spring Invitational IM D9
YANG,Q2126SAVANOVIC,A2387½–½2022E172022 New York Spring Invitational IM D9

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Carlos Colodro is a Hispanic Philologist from Bolivia. He works as a freelance translator and writer since 2012. A lot of his work is done in chess-related texts, as the game is one of his biggest interests, along with literature and music.

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