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USNJAC -Day 2 Review

Saturday, August 28th proved to be a huge day for Magic City in day 1 of the Pro Division of the 2nd Annual USNJAC at Magic City Jai-Alai in Miami, Florida. Reigning singles champion of the 1st USNJAC (Dec 2020), Dania’s Jairo, was eliminated by Magic City’s Julen by a score of 3-7. To top that off, the icing on the cake came when Dania’s Arrieta from the 2020 USNJAC winning doubles team of Goitia-Arrieta was eliminated by Magic City’s Spinner by a score of 3-7 in their singles match. These were huge upsets in the eyes of Dania fans. Magic City Jai-Alai fans couldn’t be prouder of their on-court accomplishments Saturday. It’s a win-win regardless of the final outcome on Sunday’s final events.

Dania’s Erik, eligible for the 2nd annual event as he became a U.S. citizen in the last year, did not disappoint for Dania. Erik bested Frank in his opening round by a score of 7-4 and then proceeded to win against Dania foe Zulaika in the next round by a score of 7-3. Erik has been Dania’s top player in recent years and considered one of the best front-court players in the world. Dania fans expect him to be the singles USNJAC tourney favorite.

James Langhans, playing under the name Douglas I, and father of Magic City stars Douglas and Benny, earned his way into the Pro Division Singles tourney by making the finals in the Master’s Division which was played on Friday, the first tourney day of the three-day USNJAC. Douglas I did not disappoint the Langhans family by winning his first two matches in the Pro Division, besting Dania’s Urbieta by a score of 7-3 in Round 1 followed by a Round 2 win of 7-3 against Magic City’s Bueno (Chris Bueno), son of Dania Player Manager Benny Bueno. Douglas I has some solid talent and superb form and looks great on the court with his serious set of specialty shots. His next match is against Erik on Sunday morning and should be a good one. It’s no wonder sons Douglas (Matt) and Benny have developed their skill sets so quickly with a coach like former pro player James! Dania’s Goita narrowly squeaked by Magic City 18-yo phenom Benny, younger brother of Douglas, by a score of 7-6 in a tightly contested 2nd Round match or it would have been a “Langhans Trifecta” making it to the final 8 for the Sunday showdown.

Connecticut player Goya (Matt, owner of the short-court practice fronton facility in CT) did not disappoint in the Masters Division and was the other player making the finals. Goya advanced to the Pro Division by making the final two but was ousted in Round 1 against Goitia by a score of 2-7. Tourney fans were in awe of Goya’s talent for his age. He’s a former professional Jai-Alai player from 40-years ago and certainly did not disappoint fans from the northeast. Goya plays in the Master’s Division Singles final Sunday morning against Douglas I and is also in the Master’s Division Doubles final match of Beach-Goya vs Mickey Mo-Suits. Jai-Alai fans won’t want to miss these Master Division finals!

The final 8 in the Pro Division singles tourney finals to be held on Sunday, 8/29 are: brothers Julen vs Goitia, Douglas I vs Erik, Spinner vs Douglas, and Ladutxe vs Carballo. Magic City players are in three of the four matches and represent half of the players in the final showdown of these eight players. There were (7) Pro Division Singles matches on Saturday where Magic City players faced off against the seasoned Dania players. The Magic City players out-played their far more experienced Dania opponents in those singles matches by a combined point score of 39-37, even with one of those matches including an early games Magic City player. These (7) 7-point matches of Magic City players vs Dania revealed another interesting statistic. All Magic City players scored at least 4-points in the 7-point matches while the seasoned Dania players scored just 3-points in three of the seven 7-point matches against Magic City. Sounds like another win for Magic City. SayHiLi.com is sure Scott Savin, Stu Neiman and Juan Arrasate could not be any prouder of the Magic City players and how far they’ve come in such a short time. Congratulations Magic City for making an event like this possible!

The Pro Division Doubles tourney has been pared-down to (8) remaining teams. Only the first round was played on Saturday with finals on Sunday. The 1st Annual USNJAC doubles winners Goitia-Arrieta were the last doubles match of the day and faced off against the winner of a round-robin match of the losing round 1 teams. They were victorious against the team of El Nino-Gallo by a score of 7-3 to advance to the final eight teams. The doubles match of Frank-Johnny vs Anderluck-Bradley was perhaps the most exciting match Saturday with a comeback victory by Anderluck-Bradley. They were down by 5-1 and then 6-3 and survived 4-game point attempts by Frank-Johnny to claim a hard-fought victory of 7-6 and make the final eight teams. Congratulations Anderluck-Bradley for sticking it out and earning that hard-fought victory.

The final 8-teams for Pro Division Doubles with the Sunday pairings are as follows: Goitia-Arrieta vs Ubilla-Zulaika, Benny-Douglas vs Anderluck-Bradley, Carballo-Spinner vs Brodie-Kubala, and Erik-Ladutxe vs Jairo-Urbieta. The Dania fan favorite team of Erik-Ladutxe won against Mickey Mo-Suits by a score of 7-2 in Round 1. Mickey Mo-Suits team earned their shot in the Pro Division by making it to the final two teams in the Masters Division on Friday.

Magic City wonder boy, Douglas, played in 3-matches on Saturday (two singles and one doubles) and did not disappoint his huge fan base. Douglas was sitting out for the last week of pari-mutuel play at Magic City, having rolled his ankle in mid-August. His tourney debut was astonishing yesterday as he won 21-points and lost only 1-point for the day, besting all other tourney players by a country mile in that category.

USNJAC -Day 3 Review

It was a historic day in the making at the 2nd Annual USNJAC Tournament at Magic City Jai-Alai in Miami, Florida today. The Langhans brothers, Douglas and 18-yo younger brother, Benny, turned the USNJAC into a family affair by Douglas winning the Singles Pro Championship and Douglas-Benny team winning the Doubles Pro Championship. They defeated much more experienced top Dania professionals in doing so and the Tiger’s Board Magic City short-court naysayers/haters are now placed on permanent “IGNORE” for their ramblings…..enough said!

Benny-Douglas beat Dania’s best team of Erik-Ladutxe by a score of 9-7 in the Doubles finale. They were behind by as much as 3-points at one time, with a score of 3-6, and then went on to win 6 of the next 7 points to clinch the victory by a score of 9-7. Young brother, Benny, who turned pro at age 17 had a solid performance catching in the back-court while Douglas covered the front-court. This was no doubt a match favored by the highly experienced Dania duo of Erik-Ladutxe, however, the persistence of the Langhans brothers paid off by staying the course. Congratulations Douglas-Benny and father/trainer/former pro James Langhans and family!!

Dania’s Goitia, also a part-time ref at Magic City in the Dania off-season, managed to pull the upset of the day by solidly beating Erik in the semi-final round of the Singles Pro Championship by a score of 7-4. Goitia threw an unbelievable chula to go ahead of the huge favorite Erik by a score of 6-4 before polishing off Erik. Douglas had beaten Spinner by a score of 7-1 and then Carballo by 7-1 to get to the finale with Goitia where the Magic City wonder boy Douglas prevailed in the match against Goitia, winning by a score of 9-4.

Douglas took home $7,500 for 1st place prize in the Singles Pro Championship while Goitia received $2,500 for 2nd place honors. The Langhans brothers split the $10,000 1st place prize for the Doubles Pro Championship and Dania’s Erik-Ladutxe split a respectable $5,000 for their 2nd place finish.

SayHiLi congratulates the Magic City professionals for their incredible victories! Scott, Lindsay, Stu, Andrew, JR and crew are to be commended for putting on a sensational event this year! Be sure to watch the event match replays on The Jai-Alai Channel for some great exciting short-court Jai-Alai action. Check out all the tournament scores right here on SayHiLi.com, including the Master’s Division finale scores for more info.  This author has to take a much-needed break from tracking and reporting on the 3-days of short-court action at Magic City.

We are sure that Jeff Conway’s PelotaPress.com site will provide a write-up on the Master’s Division of the USNJAC, and we don’t want to duplicate effort, but complete USNJAC scores can be seen on the SayHiLi blog article about the USNJAC .

Magic City Jai-Alai games resume on Saturday, September 11th with 8-pari-mutuel games at 1:30-pm followed by six exciting H2H doubles matches at 4-pm! Residents of Iowa and Illinois can now do sports betting wagers on Magic City Jai-Alai H2H games at BetRivers.com, the USNJAC tournament sponsor for this 2nd annual USNJAC event. Sports wagering on Magic City Jai-Alai pari-mutuel games can also be done on PrizePicks.com.

The super exciting fast-paced short-court Jai-Alai action concluded for week 15 of the regular season on Tuesday, August 10th with good-guy Ben, nailing his 4th Golden Cesta Award of his career joining the ranks of 4th most GC awards with Anderluck and Carballo. Ben won 4 of his 12 singles games and was 50.0% ITM in his 12 games and had the highest % Wins of the week with 33.3%. Congratulations Ben on your great Jai-Alai play! Douglas took honors for highest ITM of the week with a respectable 66.7%. The doubles teams of Anderluck-Bradley and Kubala-Benny were win leaders for the week with 2-wins each despite Anderluck-Bradley missing action the first half of the week. Currently, Cool Fitness-Spinner lead the 3rd doubles tourney of the year with 7-wins while Diaz-Douglas and Kubala-Benny are tied for 2nd with 5-wins each. Anderluck-Bradley are next best with 3-wins each. Teams Cool-Fitness and Diaz Douglas are both tied for 2nd in ITM with 56.6% each. The highly touted and respected H2H doubles team of Jeden-Julen are still struggling in pari-mutuel games while tied for 5th in wins with 2-wins (8.3% wins and 29.2% ITM).

The Singles Championship remains super-heated with 4-players tied for first with 38-wins (WOW! You don’t get this at Dania!). Those players are Ben, Benny, Douglas and Julen followed up by El Barba with 37 along with RonRon (currently out with injury) and Anderluck with 33 wins. The next best total singles wins is a group of 3-players led by Tennessee with 26, Spinner 25 and Kubala 24. This group of three is then followed by others with 16-wins and less.

Week 16 of the regular season kicks-off on Saturday, August 14th, with a 1:30-pm performance where live fans are allowed in the fronton. Seating starts at 1:00 pm. Don’t forget the exciting H2H doubles games which follow at 5-pm where live fans are also allowed. Live fans for Saturday’s H2H doubles can also get in on one FREE shot at an incredible cash prize of $4,000 on Saturday with the 6-Picks Promotion. There was another $1,000 added to the previous $3,000 carryover making this jackpot $4,000 since nobody again selected all six H2H doubles games correctly on Saturday August 7th. One contestant yet again had the first 5-matches correct and missed on the final match. Generally, the person(s) picking ALL 6-winners of the (6) H2H doubles matches split $1,000. There are 64-different combinations of picking all 6-matches and each participant gets only ONE chance, so this is not impossible by any means. This 6-Picks Jackpot continues to grow by $1,000 weekly until a contestant correctly picks the winner of all 6-matches (multiple winners of all matches split the Jackpot). So far there have been lucky winners the first two Saturdays, July 10th and July 17th. Those winners each took home a cool $1,000 cash. Be sure to understand all the rules for this promotion if you are participating in this on-site contest at Magic City Jai-Alai and get your entry in before the deadline. We do know you must be present at the conclusion to collect if you are a 6-Picks winner. Please note that this contest ends on August 21st and will be replaced with a new contest allowing fans at home to participate and entails all three H2H game days. The new contest is called 18-Picks! The 18-Picks also replaces the weekly fantasy league. The 18-picks contest makes it’s debut after the 2nd Annual USNJAC tourney when Magic City Jai-Alai H2H and pari-mutuel games resume on Saturday, September 11.

Don’t forget to get those Magic City Fantasy Jai-Alai League selections locked-in for week 16 before the start of Saturday’s game 1! Contestants need to be mindful of the recent entries change on Saturday’s live performance where the late-game players now play an extra feature game in addition to game 6 & 8. These late-game players get to fascinate the fans by competing in middle game 4 on Saturdays only. The Jai-5 is at an huge $4,696.40 carryover going into Saturday’s performance so don’t miss out on your chance at a big pot which could top $7,000 to a single 5 of 5 winner on Saturday.

The week 16 entries are expected to be scratch-free for the start of the week. RonRon continues to be out with knee/back pain and should be back after the break in action after the conclusion of the USNJAC tourney (Tourney is Aug 27-29th, don’t miss this).

Amazing short-court Jai-Alai was again on the menu for week 13 which concluded Tuesday, July 27th! Douglas secured his 28th Golden Cesta Award by winning 4 of his 9-singles games and had an impressive 88.9% ITM with his 8 of 9 games ITM and surged to 2nd place in the Singles Championship, just 2-wins shy of leader El Barba who has 37-singles wins. The new doubles tournament started, the 3rd of 2021, and 2nd doubles tourney winners Cool Fitness-Spinner got of to a huge lead again by winning 5 of their 7 doubles games for an impressive 71.4% wins! There are three other teams tied for 2nd with 1-win each.

The Singles Championship remains to be quite a battle with 8-players of the Magic City 20-player roster within 8-wins of each other. El Barba has 37, Douglas 35, Julen 34, Ben & RonRon 33, Anderluck 32, and Benny & Ikeda finish out the top 8 with 29-wins. The next best on wins is Spinner with 23, Tennessee 22, and Kubala 21. This group of three is then followed by others with 15-wins and less.

Week 14 of the regular season kicks-off on Saturday, July 31st, with a 1:30-pm performance where live fans are allowed in the fronton. Seating starts at 1:00 pm. Don’t forget the exciting H2H doubles games which follow at 5-pm where live fans are also allowed. Live fans for Saturday’s H2H doubles can also get in on one FREE shot at $2,000 on Saturday; the new 6-Picks Promotion. There is a carryover making this jackpot $2,000 since nobody selected all six H2H doubles games correctly on Saturday July 24th. Generally, the person(s) picking ALL 6-winners of the (6) H2H doubles matches split $1,000. There are 64-different combinations of picking all 6-matches and each participant gets only ONE chance, so this is not impossible by any means. If nobody has all 6-winners, the $1,000 carries over to the next Saturday where $2,000 is up for grabs for the winner(s) of ALL 6-matches. This “jackpot” continues to grow by $1,000 weekly until a contestant correctly picks the winner of all 6-matches. So far there have been lucky winners the first two Saturdays, July 10th and July 17th. Those winners each took home a cool $1,000 cash. Be sure to understand all the rules for this promotion if you are participating in this on-site contest and get your entry in before the deadline. You must be present at the conclusion to collect if you are a winner.

Don’t forget to get those Magic City Fantasy Jai-Alai League selections locked-in before the start of Saturday’s game 1! Contestants need to be mindful of the entries change on Saturday’s live performance where the late-game players now play an extra feature game in addition to game 6 & 8. The late-gamers will also be competing in game 4 (Saturday only).

There had not been any scratches at Magic City Jai-Alai since June 5th, however, Tuesday July 27th RonRon scratched on games 6-on due to knee and potential back issues. This was an amazing stretch for a Jai-Alai venue to have no scratches which is far different from the Dania Jai-Alai venue which unfortunately has a history of regular unexpected player scratches, which makes handicapping more difficult and and can make advance wagering a riskier gamble. Please take note that RonRon is not listed in the entries for Saturday & Sunday. Anderluck did injure his bicep during the first H2H doubles match on Tuesday evening and scratched for his second match. We are assuming this was not a serious injury as he is listed in the entries for Saturday & Sunday.

Tuesday, July 13th concluded another week of the fast-action short-court Jai-Alai with top Magic City professional Jai-Alai player RonRon securing his 16th Golden Cesta Award, winning the tie-breaker against Ben & CRB who also had 3-wins each but had lower singles game win percents for the week than RonRon. Congratulations RonRon on your achievement and we are sure your family is very proud of you!

The 2021 regular season Singles Championship has continued to be a contentious battle with lead changes happening regularly. Half of the 20-player roster has from 20 to 32 singles wins. Ben now leads this group with 32 wins, Julen & RonRon have 31, Anderluck & El Barba have 29, Douglas has moved up to the top six with 28, Benny & Ikeda have 26, Spinner has 22, and Tennessee has 20. Douglas still commands the lead in singles win percentage with 28.0%. Spinner and RonRon are in a virtual tie with overall best % ITM with 55.7 and 55.2, respectively while Douglas is the only other player with ITM over 50% with a 51.0%.

The second 2021 Doubles Tournament of the year is still being dominated by the same 3-teams. Cool Fitness-Spinner lead the 10-teams with 23-wins and will win split the first place price of $10,000. Kubala-Benny picked up a win and are second with 18-wins while Carballo-Tennessee were winless this week and remain in 3rd place with 16-wins. There are only 8-games left in this doubles tournament which concludes on game 7 of Tuesday’s performance on July 20th. The 2nd place prize money of $5,000 could come down to the final game if Carballo-Tennessee kick it into gear and make up some ground this week.

Week 12 kicks-off on Saturday, July 17th, with a 1:30-pm performance where live fans are allowed in the fronton. Seating starts at 1:00 pm. Don’t forget the exciting H2H doubles games which follow at 5-pm where live fans are also allowed. Live fans for Saturday’s H2H doubles can also get in on one FREE shot at $1,000 on Saturday; the new 6-Picks Promotion. The person(s) picking ALL 6-winners of the (6) H2H doubles matches split $1,000. There are 64-different combinations of picking all 6-matches, however, each participant gets only ONE chance. If nobody has all 6-winners, the $1,000 carries over to the next Saturday where $2,000 is up for grabs for the winner(s) of ALL 6-matches. This “jackpot” continues to grow by $1,000 weekly until a contestant correctly picks the winner of all 6-matches. There was one lucky winner who picked all 6 winners of the H2H games on Saturday, July 10th. That winner took home a cool $1,000. The 6-Picks Promotion starts at $1,000 again for Saturday, July 17th. Be sure to understand all the rules for this promotion if you are participating. Also, don’t forget, be sure to get those Magic City Fantasy Jai-Alai League selections locked-in before the start of Saturday’s game 1!

By Straymar

The exciting and fast-paced action of short-court Jai-Alai returns to the Magic City Jai-Alai court at 4-pm on Saturday, May 1^st.  Magic City Jai-Alai fans have been anxiously awaiting the return of Magic City phenom Douglas who missed a large portion of the 2021 10-week mini-season due to a wrist injury.  Douglas will kick-off the regular season by playing only in doubles games for Week 1 and is expected to start playing at least one singles game a performance starting Week 2. 

Players Bueno and Juice are both sidelined Week 1 due to injuries.  Bueno is suffering from chronic shoulder pain and will miss Week 1.  He will be scratched from play for Saturday & Sunday.  The Monday & Tuesday double-header entries have been re-uploaded without Bueno in the entries so be careful to use only the newly released entries & programs without Bueno  for Monday/Tuesday.  Juice is out with a knee injury and is expected to be out for 2-weeks to a month while recovering.  SayHiLi wishes the best to both of these players in their recovery!  We believe this is the first time Bueno has scratched in his entire Magic City Jai-Alai career which is an amazing accomplishment for such a physically demanding sport.

The 2^nd Doubles Tournament of 2021 again looks to be another highly competitive event with evenly-matched teams thanks to doubles tournament matchmaker, Scott Savin.  The doubles teams are as follows:  Anderluck-Vuelo,  Bueno-Ben,  Carballo-Tennessee, Cool Fitness-Spinner, CRB-Bradley, Diaz-Douglas, El Barba-Ikeda, Jeden-Julen, Juice-RonRon and Kubala-Benny.  The top four teams in the 1^st 2021 Doubles Tournament remain the same for this 2^nd tournament:  Kubala-Benny, Bueno-Ben, Juice-RonRon and Ikeda-El Barba.  The doubles tournament games will continue to be played in games 5 and 7 like previously during the 2021 10-week mini-season.

The 2021 regular season now features the addition of a Daily Double wager, a $2.00 minimum wager.  There is an early Daily Double games 1&2 and a late Daily Double games 7&8.  There are only 8-games a performance now, so the game 9 superfecta game has been discontinued and all eight games are 7-point games with points doubling after the first round (aka the Spectacular 7 format).  The Mighty Ocho wager, a $1.00 Pick 8 Jackpot wager which works exactly like the “Jai-ly” popular Jai-5 wager now has a $5,000 guaranteed jackpot to a single winner correctly picking all 8-winners in games 1-8; this is increased $1,000 from the previous $4,000 guaranteed jackpot.  The Jai-5 Jackpot wager, with it’s $2,000 guaranteed jackpot to a single winning ticket, still starts with game 3 (games 3-7).  There are still two Pick 3’s on the wagering menu, however they are now games 2-4 and 6-8. Magic City’s Pick-X wagers still offer the low takeout rate of 20% which is 5% lower than the Jai-Alai industry standard of 25% for these type of wagers.

Live fans are being allowed in the spectator area to watch the Saturday 4-pm performances only and this kicks-off with Week 2 for the Saturday, May 8^th performance.  Note the addition of exciting H2H doubles games on Saturdays at 1-pm before the 4-pm performance; these start on Saturday May 1st.  The H2H games are not open for live fan viewing so please take note of this when planning your next visit to Magic City Jai-Alai.  H2H singles will be played on Mondays only at 10-am.  There is an amazing $100,000 in total H2H prize money for the singles and doubles H2H so get ready for some intense competition. Remember to watch all H2H games on The Jai-Alai Channel and if you miss the live games be sure to watch after the fact.

The Magic City schedule for the 2021 regular season is 6-performances a week from May through November.  Here is the schedule:

• Saturday:  4:30 pm
• Sunday:  1-pm
• Monday:  1-pm and 4:30-pm
• Tuesday:  1-pm and 4:30-pm

Last but not least, the highly popular Magic City Fantasy Jai-Alai league kicks off again this week, a continuation of the first 10-week mini-season of 2021 for the grand prize (a one-of-a-kind merchandise prize).   Be sure to go to www.fantasyjaialai.com to sign-up to submit your picks for this opening week of the regular season (everyone needs to sign-up again).  You can win up to $100 a week for being the first place finisher and possibly even more depending on the number of live entries for the week.  A special thanks to Andrew Blechman, Fantasy League Commissioner, for all his efforts in running this Fantasy Jai-Alai league!