Tulsa Spring Open 2011 and Oklahoma Junior Championship
Twenty five players showed up by 10 am with the recently floored Rev. Ed Boyle as a house player. The names included the current State Champion Chuck Unruh, the former Denker rep. Ryan Farell, and our current Denker Rep. Stephen Gehly. Back temporally from College David Luscomb, a former OSCO Premier player and a strong class A was the 4th seated in the tournament. The tournament also had representation from the younger up coming juniors such as Hannah Farell, Kennith Teel, Daniel (Matthew) Rhoads, Charisa Santos, and Caleb Kendrick. The adults had players such as Chuck Johnson, William Garrett, Mark Anderson, Justin Bartlow, and Michael Nugent to put the youngsters in their place.
Looking at the games many were good only won by small advantages. Very few games won by wild sacrifices, or trap lines. The games ranged from slugfests to armies of plastic pieces pushing against each other as player took space on the boards.
The first round yielded a surprise as long time player Richard Ravitz lost to Blain Flower an unrated player at his first tournament. The second round had its own surprises as one of the upcoming youngsters Daniel Rhoads coming off his performance in the K-6U900 managed to draw a higher rated opponent. Also in the second round Kenneth Teel an up and coming OSCO Premier player bested Grant Nunn. Going into the third round the leaders were David Luscomb, Ansar Lemon, Ryan Farell, Micheal Nugent, the Chucks Unruh and Johnson. After a long round with the games going into the single digit seconds David emerged with a perfect score, and draws for the rest of the crew. Another third round game running onto the wee digits before the next round was a game were OCA VP Jim Bedenbaugh pulled off a draw against a strong B player showing not just the juniors are improving.
Fourth round saw Chuck Johnson paired against Ryan with David vs Ansar. The games ended with Chuck winning and David drawing causing a tie for 1st with Mr. Johnson being over 21, a clear winner for the Oklahoma Junior Champion. Congrats to the current State Junior Champion David Luscomb.