Jonathan Corbblah
Jonathan Corbblah (born 1979) is a chess master from New York City, known for his appearances on many American game shows.
Personal life
Jonathan Corbblah was born in 1979. As a child, he was almost held back in the first grade because he was illiterate; after his father—a Christian preacher—spent the summer drilling academics non-stop, by the next academic year, he was ahead of his second-grade class.
As of December 2010[update], he was married and living in Harlem. By February 2014[update], he was coaching individuals and teams for national trivia championships, and taught Scrabble to schoolchildren.
Games and game shows
Corbblah learned to play chess at age six or seven. According to the United States Chess Federation, since he began playing ranked matches in the late 1990s, Corbblah has a top regular Elo rating of 2199 (earned between 2010 and 2014) and a top blitz rating of 2262 (in 2019). In December 2002, he became a USCF Candidate Master, and in 2014, Pacific Standard reported he was a master-level chess player.
Corbblah was eleven years old in 1990 when he appeared on his first game show, PBS' Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?. In December 2010, after his two days on Jeopardy!, he told ABC News that "I'm trying to go on as many possible game shows as I can"; he has appeared on at least seven.
In summer 2019, he was a guest expert on several episodes of Best Ever Trivia Show, and then as a master mind on several 2020–2021 episodes of Master Minds. He has also won $1,500 on Cash Cab.