Tani has watched the Netflix series “The Queen’s Gambit,” about an orphan girl and outsider who proves a chess prodigy. A book Tani and his parents wrote about their journey has been optioned for a feature film by Paramount Pictures. The Adewumis also used the $250,000 contributed by readers to start a foundation that helps other homeless people and refugees. Told that Tani needed a top chess coach to develop, the family scrimped and hired a grandmaster, Giorgi Kacheishvili, to coach Tani three times a week. “When the money is too much, I reduce it to two times a week,” his father said.

Source: New York Times May 08, 2021 18:22 UTC