What’s Good: Homeless 8-Year-Old Refugee Wins Chess Championship

Tanitoluwa (Tani) Adewumi is a a young Nigerian immigrant and third grader at P.S. 116 in New York that just won in his age bracket at the New York State Scholastic Primary Championship. If you don't know what that is, it's a huge chess match where kids and adults alike train to out strategize the other in the game of chess.

Tani and his family of four recently immigrated from northern Nigeria  in June of 2018 due to fear of attacks by the extremist group Boko Haram. The family has been stayingin a New York homeless shelter, where Tani keeps his chess trophies. The real surprise to this story is that he only started playing chess a year ago!

Shawn Martinez is the chess coach at P.S. 116 whom recruited Tani to join the chess program because he said he has a great memory and is very tactical. Tani is also very dedicated to his craft as his dad told CNN, that he does about 500 puzzles a week compared to most kids who do 50 to 100 puzzles a week.

Tani hopes to earn the grand master title which is the highest honor a chess player can obtain.