A Nigerian Chess Master in Times Square

Good morning. It’s Thursday. Today we’ll look at a Nigerian chess master who is playing in Times Square. We’ll also look at a documentary about Black farmers that a store in Brooklyn will play on Earth Day.

Credit…Lola Fadulu/The New York Times

As people took turns playing double Dutch and as Batman strutted around in Times Square, a Nigerian chess master, Tunde Onakoya, began his quest to break the Guinness world record for the longest chess marathon.

Onakoya, 29, in New York City for the first time, aims not only to break the world record of 56 hours, set in 2018, but also to raise money for the Gift of Chess and Chess in Slums Africa, organizations that aim to use the game to lift children out of poverty.

“I’m playing for the dreams of millions of children globally without access to education,” read a message from Onakoya on a sandwich poster near the tables set up for his game. The goal was to raise $1 million over the next three days, said Russell Makofsky, a co-founder of the Gift of Chess.

At any given point, Onakoya was in the middle of two consecutive games, including one against Shawn Martinez, a national chess master who coached Tanitoluwa Adewumi, a boy who lived in a homeless shelter in New York City and became a chess master.