The 2013 Kansas Open was held from July 12th to July 14th at the Holiday Inn off East Kellogg in Wichita, KS.
There were three tournaments: the Blitz, the Bughouse, and the Main tournament that was broken down into Open and Reserve sections.
There were 36 players in the Blitz, 6 teams in the Bughouse, and 39 players in Open and 72 players in the Reserve. The 111 players for both Open and Reserve is the highest total since 121 participants in the 1991 Kansas Open in Overland Park according to Ralph Bowman.
The Blitz was won by Conrad Holt with a perfect score of 5 wins and no losses. There were many with 4 wins and 1 loss including Brian Yang, Thomas Braunlich, Tim Steiner, Abhishek Mallella, and Stanley Capps.
First place Class B was a four way tie with Rick Hodges, Mohammadresa Hajiarbabi, Terry Wright, and Garland Heyen all having 3.0 points out of 5. Dinko Skerlev was first place Class C and below with 3.0 points.
For the Blitz there were three scholastic plaques handed out: Apramay Mishra had 3.5 points, Joshua Fernandes had 3.0 points, and Kiana Hajiarbabi had 2.0 points.
The Open section determines the new Kansas Champion. And, the new 2013 Kansas Champion and also overall champion for the Open section was Conrad Holt with 5 wins in 5 games. At 4.0 points and by himself was Missouri player Bob Holliman.
Tournament director CJ Armenta with new Kansas Champion Conrad Holt
Sharing Class A and below first place prizes in the Open section were Kansas player Jason Wawrzaszek and Oklahoma player Howard Zong with 3.5 points.
The Open section had a lot of out of state players with 8 players from Missouri, 7 players from Oklahoma, 5 players from Nebraska, 3 players from Russia, and 1 player from Nevada out of 39 total players in the Open section.
The Reserve section was a tie between Kansas players Kaustubh Nimkar and Peter Bradshaw at 4.5 points as a result of their last round draw against each other.
Winning the Reserve section class C first place was CJ Armenta at 4.0 points. For class D and below section there was a two way tie for first with class D player Gabrial Purdy and unrated player Marshal Lusk both scoring 4.0 points.
Scholastic plaques were also presented in the Reserve section. Joshua Fernandes was first at 3.5 points. He won on tiebreaks over Steven Burgoon who also had 3.5 points. In third place was Kyle Tran with 3.0 points.
The Bughouse tourney was held July 12th immediately following the Blitz. There were 6 teams. After the 5 round robin tourney there was a tie between the team of Ben Gradsky-Tony Dutiel and Conrad Holt-Abhishek Mallela, each having 1 loss out of 10 total games played. Then there was a three game playoff with the team of Holt-Mallela winning 2 games to 1.
Report and photo by Laurence Coker