alhambra 

Updated 11/14/2009

2009 WBC Report  

  2010 Status: pending 2010 GM commitment

Kevin Wojtaszczyk, NY

2009 Champion

Offsite Links

   

Event History
2004    Bruce Reiff     69
2005     Nate Hoam     97
2006    Michael Mullins     88
2007     Vassili Kyrkos     84
2008    L. Dan Hoffman     91
2009    Kevin Wojtaszczyk     99

Euro Quest Event History
2004    Holliday Jones     22
 Laurels

 Rank  Name              From  Last  Total
   1.  Nate Hoam          OH    08     54
   2.  Kevin Wojtaszczyk  NY    09     30
   3.  Legend Dan Hoffman MD    08     30
   4.  Vassili Kyrkos     NY    07     30
   5.  Michael Mullins    MA    06     30
   6.  Bruce Reiff        OH    04     30
   7.  Holliday Jones     MD    04     20
   8.  Carolyn Strock     PA    09     18
   9.  Luke Koleszar      VA    07     18
  10.  Matt Calkins       VA    06     18
  11.  Richard Meyer      MA    05     18
  12.  George Sauer       OH    04     18
  13.  Tom Dunning        NY    05     14
  14.  Robert Drozd       IL    09     12
  15.  Matthew Amitrano   VA    09     12
  16.  Steve Koleszar     VA    08     12
  17.  Brian Kowal        WI    07     12
  18.  Christian Moffa    NJ    06     12
  19.  Ilan Tadmor        NY    05     12
  20.  Josh Cooper        MD    04     12
  21.  Perrianne Lurie    PA    04     12
  22.  Debie Gutermuth    NC    09      9
  23.  Heather Palenshus  OH    08      9
  24.  Faisal Kassam      ab    07      9
  25.  Jeff Mullet        OH    06      9
  26.  David Buchholz     MI    05      9
  27.  Laurel Stokes      NJ    04      9
  28.  Davyd Field        SC    08      6
  29.  Peter Putnam       PA    04      6
  30.  Tom Wojke          PA    04      6
  31.  Jim Vroom          PA    04      4
  32.  Alfred Smith       NC    09      3
  33.  Lisa Gutermuth     FL    08      3
  34.  Robert Kircher     RI    07      3
  35.  John Faella        RI    06      3
  36.  David Gagne        qc    05      3
  37.  Lee Presser        NY    04      3
  38.  Luann Stubbs       PA    04      2

2009 Laurelists                                                 Repeating Laurelists: 0

Carolyn Strock, PA
2nd

Robert Drozd, IL
3rd

Debbie Gutermuth, NC
4th

Matt Amitrano, VA
5th

Alfred Smith, NC
6th


Past Winners

Bruce Reiff, OH
2004

Nate Hoam, OH
2005

Michael Mullins, MA
2006

Vassili Kyrkos, NY
2007

Legend Dan Hoffman, MD
2008


Alhambra draws well with only two heats - missing triple figures by just one player. Most events drawing over 100 players use three or four heats.

Chalk up another event for the Chairman of the Board where he's outshined by a family member. Just who wears the pants in the Gutermuth household anyway?

Palaces R Us

We again had 25 tables during the two preliminary heats with all tables being 5-player games. 
 
The Preliminary results during the heats were as follows:
* Dan Hoffman, the defending champ, won his table despite the random draw handing some tough competition as he had to overcome Matt Calkins who was a finalist in 2006 and past champion and three-time finalist Nate Hoam.  Matt came in a close second which was his best showing this year as he came in last in the second round at Ken Gutermuth's table.  Nate had a similar fate as he took third in this first round table and then proceeded to come in a very distant last on his second round table which was won by Chris Ellis.
* Sam Atabaki, in the first round,  and Michael Brown, in the second,  had the privilege of playing 2006 Champion Mike Mullins and both beat him.
* Meghan Friedman beat Vassili Krykos, the 2007 Champion, in the first round.  Undeterred, Vassili squeaked out a one-point win against Charles Faella in the second round. "Close, but no cigar" was the motto for Charles who also come in second to Chris Greenfeld in his first round game and did not advance.
* John Lewis and Chris Moffa had the closest finish - requiring the tie breaker rules to make Lewis the winner. 
* Jeff Meyer topped Corey Kim by one point to take his Round 1 game.
* Other close games won by three points went to Lawrence Solomon, Matt Amitrano, and Carolyn Strock.
* Debbie Gutermuth won her table in the first round to advance for only the second time since donning the GM duties for this event.
* Karen Roberts had the highest score in the event with a 151 total.  Sean McCulloch had the second highest winning score overall, with a 137.  These were followed by Jean Francois Gagne at 102, Kevin Wojtaszczyk at 101 and Devon Miller with100.
* Ed Roberts won his table by building a 19 length wall in the first heat.  Robert Drozd had a similar strategy of winning his tables by building long (16 length) walls in the heats.  Robert had won in the first round last year also building a16-length wall.
* Cheryl Meek and Alfred Smith both won their tables, while having the shortest walls - proving there is more than one path to victory.

With the two preliminary heats complete, we were now ready for the semi-final.  
* Kevin Wojtasczyk won his table, which had the closest game amongst all players on the same board with the spread from his score to the last being only eight points.  Kevin ended with a 107 score followed by Edward Roberts 101, Devon Miller 100, and Vassili Kyrkos 99.  
* Debbie Gutermuth won her table by only a 4-point difference, which was the closest victory score between first and second.  She ended with 104 followed by Alfred Smith at 101 and Sam Atabaki with 100.  Defending champ Dan Hoffman brought up the rear with 90 - ending the defense of his title.
* Carolyn Strock won her table by the largest gap.  She ended with a 129 score to 97by Meghan Friedmann.  Last place was closely fought with Karen Roberts edging Ken Gutermuth 75-74. The widely twidely varying scores were driven by Carolyn's long wall and purple lead. Otherwise, there was a three-way tie for the Blue, Red, and White buildings.
* Matt Amitrano won his table by building a long wall early in the scoring rounds.  His wall building helped pull him ahead as a number of the buildings tied between three or four players.  Matt's closest competition was Thomas Saal who also built a long wall and was included in only two of the building ties, but did not place in the other colors giving Matt the edge.
* Robert Drozd won his table despite not having the longest wall, but this table also did not have position ties like the others.  His closest competition came from John Lewis who had built the longest wall in the semi-final round of 20. Michael Brown and Chris Greenfield did not have much luck in walls and could not pull enough of a lead in buildings to compensate.
 
Immediately following the semi-finals, the victors gathered for the Final round.  In the first scoring round, there was a tie for the lead in five of the six buildings.  Kevin had a slight advantage by having the longest wall of 9 with Debbie closely behind with a wall length of 8.  By the second scoring round, Carolyn had secured a lead in green (a middle size point building) and Matt had secured a lead in Blue (the smallest point building).  Ties stagnated the other point positions.  Besides Matt's lead in Blue, he had only one building in all the other colors except for Brown.  This did not help him as this meant he was not getting points for these other colors.  Carolyn had built her wall from 4 in the first round to now 11.  Kevin and Debbie's wall had not changed much from the first round.  At this point, Kevin held a two-point lead over Carolyn, followed by a tie for third between Debbie and Robert. For the final scoring round, there were again a number of ties for point positions with White being a four-way tie for first.  By this time Matt had only gained two more tiles with a Brown building being one of them.  This left Matt with the lead in Blue, a tie in White, and one in all the other colors.  This left Matt with a very colorful and diverse palace - albeit in last place.  Debbie tied in many of the buildings she had obtained which prevented her from threatening the leaders.  A one-point difference between second and third separated Carolyn and Robert.  Again, the ties in colors helped keep the scores close.  Kevin pulled out a victory with him adding to his wall and being included in many of the leading position ties. 

The finalists mug for their 15 minutes of fame.

Cheryl Meek keeps a sharp eye on Mullet ... and who can blame her?
 GM      Debbie Gutermuth  [6th Year]   NA
   NA   NA

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