Biography:
Tunde Onakoya is a Nigerian chess master, coach, and founder of Chess In Slums Africa. He became popular when he aspire and break the world record on Chess marathon as the longest and nonstop Chess player by Guinness World Record on 20th April, 2024 at Times Square, New York City, United States of America.
Age:
He was born on 6 October 1994
Place of birth:
Ikorodu, Lagos State Nigeria.
Education
His family was not able to pay his school fees in secondary school so his mother started working as a cleaner in the same school in exchange for his school fees.
Tunde Onakoya attended Yaba College of Technology where he got his diploma in computer science. In the same institution, he was a gold medalist representing the school in the Nigeria Polytechnic Games and also at the RCCG Chess Championship.
Career
Tunde Onakoya started learning how to play chess at a barber’s shop in a slum in Ikorodu, Lagos where he was born and grew up.
Tunde Onakoya went on to win the National Friends of Chess and the Chevron Chess Open.
He was later featured in CNN African Voices. At the moment, Tunde is among the board members of the New York City-based non-profit The Gift of Chess.
World Ranking: Tunde peak ranking in the world was 2197 as of July 2016.
At the moment, Tunde Onakoya is ranked as the number 13 chess player in Nigeria.
Onakoya is currently the world’s chess marathon record holder for playing over 60 consecutive hours. And this has earned him a place in Guinness World Record as he break a record in the world of chess on 20 April, 2024.
Chess in Slums Africa
He started Chess in Slums Africa as a volunteer-driven non-profit organization in September 2018 to empower the young ones in local communities through chess.
Chess in Slums Africa had the opportunity to partner with Chess.com in September 2020 which was an educational tool for classrooms, chess clubs, and parents.
As of June 2021, the Chess in Slums Africa organization was able to train over 200 children and get lifelong scholarships for 20 of them.
In May 2021, Ferdinand, a 10-year-old boy with cerebral palsy won the chess tournament in Makoko. He later competed with Babajide Sanwo-Olu, the governor of Lagos State when he met him.
Net Worth
Currently, there is no information about Tunde Onakoya’s net worth. But one thing is sure that Tunde Onakoya is probably worth millions of naira at the moment of writing this article.
References: FIDE
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