Despite having a difficult upbringing and life challenges, Tunde Onakoya, the chess player and coach, who holds the Guinness World record for the longest marathon chess game has a dream he once feared to speak aloud: he wants to be a billionaire. “I’ve always been afraid to say that i want to make a lot of money, and i also want to have a lot of power” he said.
It’s a bold declaration from a man whose life has already defied the odds and captured global attention. Born in Ketu, Lagos Nigeria, Tunde grew up in poverty. His father drove a danfo bus while his mother worked as a petty trader and later as a street cleaner, sweeping roads and selling sachet water all to provide the education she never had. Life was already hard but became harder when he lost his dad to fatal accident.
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Discovering chess at a barbershop, he was amazed by the way it was played and became totally fixated. “It was love at first sight,” he recalls. Unable to afford a board, he crafted one out of cardboard and molded the pieces from clay. Chess became his teacher, a silent friend, and a gateway out of his circumstances. It earned him scholarships and gold medals. He became a national master, but the cost of international competitions made the dream of becoming a grandmaster unreachable.
It all started to change when he found a new sense of purpose. “This talent, if I could give it back to children like me, then it would have so much more meaning” he said. That realization led him to start teaching chess in schools and later in the slums. For Onakoya, the game wasn’t about winning anymore it was about giving children an intellectual identity and a reason to believe in their own potential.
“Chess is such a cerebral game,” he said. “A child excelling at chess does wonders for their self-esteem. It did for me.”
His work gave rise to Chess in Slums Africa, an initiative that has since helped hundreds of children access education, mentorship, and a future. But the road has been paved with more than just strategy and service it’s been built through pain.
Once a victim of vascular necrosis in his hip, leaving him with chronic pain and a limp throughout his youth. The agony and isolation it brought led to the discovery and his love for chess. At 21, he finally underwent hip replacement surgery. Today, he walks with a prosthetic hip.
After the contact and breeding of young chess masters from the slums and wanting even more and a different personality, he started playing chess again, travelled abroad, and in 2024 broke the Guinness World Record for the longest chess marathon. The video of him playing 10 people at once in Germany went viral. He toured 14 countries, giving talks, interviews, and inspiring millions. But with the fame came disorientation and guilt.
“My mind said: capitalize on this… my heart said: you belong with the children.” It forced him to confront a new challenge: how to balance personal growth with service.
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For Onakoya, that is now his role to stand in the gap between privilege and poverty. It is, he says, the only way he could reconcile his growing influence with his original calling.
“Anybody can be famous,” he said. “You can be famous for twerking on instagram. But to have influence when people care deeply about what you do and what you have to say that’s rare. That’s powerful.”
The connectivity between his talent and his touch on Africa children through chess is indeed a clear example of man diligent in his work.
Whether he becomes a billionaire or not, Tunde Onakoya has already redefined what it means to build legacy from struggle. He didn’t just teach children how to play a game he taught them how to believe in the possibility of winning.
