CRN Channel Madness Round 1: Dismore, Kritzer In Close Match; Kinlaw Pulls Ahead

Round 1 of the 2019 CRN Channel Madness Tournament of Chiefs is in full swing, with less than 24 hours of voting left.

The tightest race of Round 1 is happening in the Hardware region, where HP Inc.'s Stephanie Dismore and Ruckus Networks' Raelyn Kritzer going toe to toe. Kritzer is still hanging on to her early lead in the round, but Dismore has nearly closed the gap, with Kritzer currently ahead 52 percent to Dismore's 48 percent.

Also in the Hardware region, Lexmark's Sammy Kinlaw is looking for a come-from-behind victory. He was trailing early in the voting but has since gained 23 percentage points to overtake Intel's Jason Kimrey 66 percent to 34 percent.

Another hotly contested matchup is unfolding in the Infrastructure region, where Cisco's Oliver Tuszik is hanging on with 53 percent of the vote against Rob Rae of Datto, who's sticking in there with 47 percent.

In the Cloud region, IBM's John Teltsch refuses to go quietly in his battle against Microsoft's Gavriella Schuster. Schuster's lead is still intact, but Teltsch is mounting a strong campaign, gaining 12 percentage points since Friday. Schuster's now in the lead with 58 percent to Teltsch's 42 percent.

And in the Security region, Check Point Software Technologies' Frank Rauch continues to fend off Fortinet's Jon Bove, leading 57 percent to 43 percent.

Here's a look at where all of the matchups stand:

Infrastructure

Curtiz Gangi, Eaton 25 vs. Jeff McCullough, NetApp 75

Shannon Sbar, APC by Schneider Electric 68 vs. Brian Rosenberg, Juniper Networks 32

Gordon Mackintosh, Extreme Networks 65 vs. Paul Hunter, Hewlett Packard Enterprise 35

Oliver Tuszik, Cisco Systems 53 vs. Rob Rae, Datto 47

Hardware

Joyce Mullen, Dell EMC 59 vs. Nick Tidd, Plantronics/Polycom 41

Stephanie Dismore, HP Inc. 48 vs. Raelyn Kritzer, Ruckus Networks, an ARRIS Company 52

Donna Grothjan, Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company 29 vs. Rob Cato, Lenovo 71

Jason Kimrey, Intel 34 vs. Sammy Kinlaw, Lexmark 66

Cloud

Iain Urquhart, Oracle 30 vs. Jenni Flinders, VMware 70

Carolee Gearhart, Google 58 vs. Jonathan McCormick, Intermedia 42

Terry Wise, Amazon Web Services 23 vs. Kevin Rooney, Veeam 77

John Teltsch, IBM 42 vs. Gavriella Schuster, Microsoft 58

Security

Jason Stein, Kaspersky Lab 36 vs. Ken McCray, McAfee 64

Chris Carter, FireEye 63 vs. HoJin Kim, SonicWall 37

Frank Rauch, Check Point Software Technologies 57 vs. Jon Bove, Fortinet 43

Kendra Krause, Sophos 64 vs. Torjus Gylstorff, Symantec 36

Voting in Round 1 remains open until noon ET on Wednesday. Visit crn.com/madness to cast your votes and choose your chief!