Happy Birthday IM (elect) Jonah Willow

Jonah B Willow was born in Nottingham on Monday, December 30th 2002. Jacob was the most popular boy’s name in 2002. “Lose Yourself” by Eminem was number one.

Jonah has a chess playing sister, Hambel, who plays for Newcastle-under-Lyme, West Nottingham, Staffordshire CA and Nottinghamshire CA.

Jonah’s first recorded graded standard play tournament was the 2010 Delancey UK Chess Challenge Terafinal and his first recorded rapidplay event was the Nottingham Rapidplay in 2011.

Jonah’s first published standard play grade was 96D in January of 2012 :

Jonah has represented West Nottingham, 4NCL Wood Green, Nottinghamshire CA and Syston (Leicester).

It is a little curious as to the reason for the rating profile to halt at the end of 2018 since Jonah has played plenty of FIDE rated games since. Compare the above with :

Jonah’s current (December 2021) FIDE standard play rating is 2381 and Jonah became a FIDE Master in 2018.

Jonah has plus scores against : Mike Surtees, Peter Svidler (!), Richard Pert, Peter Shaw, Ranesh Ratnesan, Shreyas Royal, Keith Arkell and Ameet Ghasi to name but a few.

With the white pieces Jonah is a committed 1.e4 player but he has scored 83% with 1.Nc3! first played by JH Blackburne against Noa in 1883 and named after Timothy A Dunst.

Jonah plays the unusual Chekhover Variation (4.Qxd4) in the 2…d6 Sicilian : this is an interesting alternative and has been discussed by GM Ben Finegold :

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liecBr62eqA[/embedyt]

and

GM Varuzhan Akobian :

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNoGIo4yjkM[/embedyt]

Jonah plays the Four Knights game with white.

As the second player he plays the Accelerated Dragon and the Modern Benoni.

[pgn]
[Event “Titled Tuesday intern op 17th Nov”]
[Site “Chess.com INT”]
[Date “2020.11.17”]
[Round “5”]
[White “Willow, Jonah B”]
[Black “Svidler, Peter”]
[Result “1-0”]
[ECO “B53”]
[WhiteElo “2386”]
[BlackElo “2723”]
[Annotator “British Chess News”]
[PlyCount “59”]
[EventDate “2020.11.17”]
[EventType “swiss (blitz)”]
[EventRounds “11”]
[EventCountry “USA”]
[SourceTitle “Mega2020 Update 58”]
[Source “Chessbase”]
[SourceDate “2020.11.27”]
[SourceVersion “1”]
[SourceVersionDate “2020.11.27”]
[SourceQuality “1”]

{[%evp 0,15,29,25,61,47,79,62,86,57,70,22,12,11,15,6,5,0]} 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6
3. d4 cxd4 4. Qxd4 {The Chekhover Variation (Vitaly Checkhover 1908 – 1965)} a6
{Black wishes to develop the knight without having it pinned. Probably also
makes it awkward for White to castle long.} ({The “main line” is} 4… Nc6 5.
Bb5 Bd7 6. Bxc6 (6. Qd3 Nf6 7. c4 g6 8. Nc3 Bg7 9. O-O O-O 10. h3 a6 11. Bxc6
Bxc6 12. Nd4 Nd7 13. Be3 Rc8 14. Rac1 Nc5 15. Qc2 Ne6 16. Nxe6 fxe6 $14) 6…
Bxc6 7. Nc3 Nf6 8. Bg5 e6 9. O-O-O Be7 10. Rhe1 O-O 11. Kb1 Qa5 12. Qd2 Qa6 13.
Nd4 Rfc8 14. f3 $11) 5. c4 Nc6 6. Qe3 g6 7. Be2 Bg7 8. h3 Nf6 9. O-O O-O 10.
Nc3 Nd7 11. Rd1 Nc5 12. Rb1 {[#]} f5 $2 {Probably not correct but active
nontheless. 13 games with this in MegaBase 2020 and the move is labelled as
“hot”.} (12… a5) 13. b4 f4 (13… Nxe4 14. Nxe4 fxe4 15. Ng5 $1 Kh8 16. Bb2 {
Removing the defender…} Bxb2 17. Rxb2 Bf5 18. g4 $18) 14. Qd2 $18 Bxc3 15.
Qxc3 Nxe4 16. Qc2 Nf6 17. Bxf4 $18 Bf5 18. Bd3 Bxd3 19. Qxd3 $146 (19. Rxd3)
19… Qc8 20. Bh6 Re8 21. Re1 (21. Qb3) 21… Qf5 22. Qd2 Rad8 23. Nd4 Nxd4 24.
Qxd4 e5 25. Qb6 Rd7 26. Rbd1 (26. b5) 26… Re6 27. Qe3 Kf7 28. Rd2 d5 $2 29.
g4 Qe4 30. cxd5 {and Svidler resigned.} 1-0
[/pgn]

He has his own Twitch TV channel.

On chess.com he is JonahWillow and his highest chess.com rating has been 2863 on April 5th 2020.

Jonah has achieved three IM norms at

1° Grandiscacchi Cattolica International 2022, 1st EJOCA Forest Hall Invitational 2021 and Dublin 2021.