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 20th concluded another week of the fast-action short-court Jai-Alai with Magic City early-mid game professional Jai-Alai player El Barba securing his 6th Golden Cesta Award and surging to the lead in the singles championship. El Barba won 6-singles games for the week, an impressive 50% wins, and is in 3rd place for most GC Awards at Magic City, only headed by Douglas and RonRon. Congratulations El Barba on your victorious week!
The 2021 regular season Singles Championship has continued to be a contentious battle with lead changes happening regularly. Eight players of the 20-player roster have from 27 to 35 singles wins. El Barba now leads this group with 35 wins, Ben 33, Anderluck & RonRon have 32, Douglas & Julen 31, Ikeda 28, and Benny 27. Douglas continues to lead in singles win percentage with 28.7% with RonRon not far behind with 24.1%. RonRon leads overall best % ITM with 55.6.
The second 2021 Doubles Tournament of the year concluded on Tuesday, July 20th. Cool Fitness-Spinner dominated the tourney with 25-wins (25.5% wins) and will split the first place price of $10,000. Kubala-Benny scored 2nd place prize money of $5,000 with 19-wins, edging out 3rd place finishers Carballo-Tennessee with their 17-victories. Fourth place team was El Barba-Ikeda with 12-wins. Those were the only teams with double digit win stats. The 3rd 2021 Doubles Tournament starts on Saturday July 24th with game 5. There are 9-teams in this tournament. Anderluck-Vuelo and CRB-Bradley will not be playing in this one. Anderluck is paired with Bradley this time while CRB and Vuelo will be tournament subs. The remaining teams from the 2nd Doubles Tournament will continue as-is.
Week 13 kicks-off on Saturday, July 24th, 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. So far there have been lucky winners both weeks who picked all 6 winners of the H2H games on Saturday, July 10th and July 17th. Those winners each took home a cool $1,000. The 6-Picks Promotion starts at $1,000 again for Saturday, July 24th. Be sure to understand all the rules for this promotion if you are participating.
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).
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!
The week was another great one with amazing short-court Jai-Alai action as these fast-paced games won’t put you to sleep at this fronton! The players keep improving and always give it 100% here, something revered and respected by Magic City Jai-Alai fans!
Anderluck had the most singles wins for Week 6 and prevailed in capturing his 5th Golden Cesta Award of his career. He is tied at 3rd with Carballo on most GC Awards, both players having 5 each! Douglas leads with 25 overall and RonRon is next most with 15.
The 2021 Regular Season Singles Championship is setting up to be the most competitive ever with more than a third of the roster jockeying for the top spot with only 6-wins separating the top 7 contenders. Currently, Ben & RonRon top the leaderboard with 23-wins, Julen has 22, Anderluck has 20, 17-yo Benny (brother of Douglas) is tied with Ikeda at 19-wins, and El Barba has 17. Strong late game players Spinner and Douglas have 14 and 12-wins each, respectively, and Tennessee also has 12-wins. Kubala isn’t far behind with 10-wins. The remainder of the players have 7-wins or less and are not out of the picture with this long season of short-court action extending through the end of November.
The 2nd Doubles tournament of 2021 has been quite the showcase of team talent at Magic City. Former Dania professional, Spinner, new to the Magic City roster for 2021 has been a great addition to Magic City with his strong competitive spirit and command of the Magic City short-court. The team of Cool Fitness and Spinner have so far been dominating this tournament with 15-wins in their 55 appearances for 27.3% wins, however 2nd place team of Kubala-Benny are closing in with 11-wins and dominated Week 6 doubles with their top 33.3% wins for the week and 66.7% ITM. Carballo-Tennessee are a close 3rd with 9-wins. Doubles teams at the low end are currently Anderluck-Vuelo with no wins in 24-starts and Bueno-Ben with 1-win in 22 starts.
Juice, a Magic City fan favorite since the inaugural season, was seen practicing on Tuesday and makes his return to play on Sunday, June 13. So far, Juice has missed all of 2021 as he underwent knee surgery and has been recovering. Welcome back Juice and my website “SayHiLi” and I wishes you the best on your return! Juice is well known for his spunk on the court and catching opponents off-guard with his surprise dejadas and caroms.
Don’t forget to catch even more exciting short-court Magic City Jai-Alai action with H2H Doubles games on Saturday at 1-pm on the JAC (Jai-Alai Channel) and H2H Singles at 10-am every Monday before the Monday double-header at 1-pm and 4:30-pm. Also, something new in 2021 is Tuesday Jai-Alai with another double-header at the same times. Be sure to get those Magic City Fantasy Jai-Alai League selections in before Saturday at 4-pm to for your shot at FREE weekly cash!
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 1st. 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 2nd 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 1st 2021 Doubles Tournament remain the same for this 2nd 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 8th 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!
Magic City’s regular season from May 1 through November brings lots of changes. The biggest change to the roster will be the return of Douglas from his wrist injury rehabilitation which will make the late games even more competitive. The regular season schedule includes six performances a week from Saturday through Tuesday. There will no longer be any 12 noon performances. The schedule includes a twilight performance on Saturday at 4-pm, matinee on Sunday at 1-pm and double-headers on Monday and Tuesday at 1-pm and 4:30-pm. There will only be 8-games a performance instead of the usual 9-games a performance. Jai-Alai H2H games will also be continuing with the addition of Doubles H2H on Saturday’s at 1-pm. Singles H2H games will be only on Monday at 10-am where previously they were on Monday and Tuesday. If you haven’t yet seen Jai-Alai H2H, you certainly need to check this out.
Live Jai-Alai viewing is partially back at Magic City beginning on Saturday May 8th and will only be allowed for the 4-pm Saturday performances until further notice. Magic City Jai-Alai has taken smart steps in prevention of the spread of covid-19 plus there have been different county regulations for Dania Jai-Alai which in Broward compared to Miami-Dade where Magic City Jai-Alai resides.
There are several changes in the wagering menu, some game changes for exotic wagers and a Jackpot minimum guarantee increase. May 1st brings the addition of Daily Doubles to Magic City Jai-Alai. There will be an early Daily Double on games 1&2 and a late Daily Double on games 7&8. Pick 3 wagers will be changed to games 2-4 and 6-8. The Mighty Ocho, a $1.00 Jackpot wager like the popular Jai-5, will increase from the $4,000 minimum guarantee to a $5,000 guarantee. There is no change to the Jai-5 Jackpot wager. The Superfecta wager, previously held on Game 9, will go away since there is no longer a game 9. All games will be the Spectacular 7 format which means all games are to 7-points with points doubling after the first round of play.
Mini-Season Wrap-Up
The Magic City Jai-Alai 10-week mini-season concluded on Monday, April 12th. Here is the mini-season wrap-up:
Singles Championship:
RonRon – $5,000 for First, 35 wins in 90 games (38.9% wins) CRB – $3,000 for Second, 19 wins in 93 games (20.4% wins) Spinner – $1,000 for Third, 16 wins in 90 games (17.8% wins)
There was a tie for 3rd between Spinner and Bueno after the conclusion of game 9 on Monday, each had 16-wins. Bueno’s record was 16 wins in 118 games (13.6% wins). The tie led to a dead-heat tie-breaker game to 6-single points between Spinner and Bueno. The tie-breaker was using the same format as a set in an H2H match, the first to win 6-single points was the winner for third and 2-serves were allowed just as in H2H. Spinner was favored to win the tie-breaker and won with a score of 6-3.
1st Doubles Tournament of 2021:
Kubala-Benny – split $10,000 for First, 11 wins in 50 games (22.0% wins) Bueno-Ben – split $5,000 for Second, 10 wins in 53 games (18.9% wins) Juice-RonRon were 3rd with 9 wins in 53 games (17.0% wins) Ikeda-El Barba were 4th with 7 wins in 51 games (13.7% wins) Jeden-Bradley were 5th with 6 wins in 51 games (11.8% wins) CRB-Spinner were 6th with 5 wins in 53 games (9.4% wins)
Golden Cesta Awards:
RonRon won 6-consecutive GC Awards from Weeks 5-10. He was the only player to win multiple GC Awards. Other winners were: Week 1 – Vuelo, Week 2 – Douglas, Week 3 – Ikeda, Week 4 – CRB
Mandatory Payouts on Closing Day, April 12th:
Jai-5 paid $5,533.60 to (1) lucky winner with 5 of 5 winners ($5,952 total handle on Jai-5).
Mighty Ocho paid 4,477.60 to (1) lucky winner with 6 of 8 winners ($3,840 total handle on MO).
Record Jai-5 Payoff:
The Jai-5 paid a whopping record payoff of $27,348 to a single ticket holder with 5 of 5 correct winners on April 5, shattering the previous record of $12,220 in 2019.
Congratulations to Magic City Jai-Alai players, support staff and management for a successful 10-week mini season!
Magic City’s 4th season debut showcased outstanding Jai-Alai talent at Saturday’s 4-pm performance and fans were wowed at just how far this short-court development Jai-Alai program has come since it began in 2018. Magic City Jai-Alai has a roster of 20-players and all played during the 9-game opener, including three new players on this 2021 roster. New additions were Spinner (Daniel Spinner) from Dania Jai-Alai, Julen (Julen Goitiandia) with playing experience from Casino Miami Jai-Alai & Markina Spain, along with 17-year old “Benny” who is Ben Langhans, the brother of Magic City’s 21-year old top player Douglas (Matt Langhans). Douglas has won all doubles tournaments and both singles championships since he started his professional career at Magic City in 2019.
Carballo was hot in late game singles and looked phenomenal, winning two of his 3-games and a second place finish in the other. Douglas had a win in his first singles game of the day. Magic City early game player, Vuelo, definitely looked improved as Stu Neiman had been touting this week. Vuelo had a show in game 1 and a win in game 2. Vuelo’s game 3 singles game almost gave him a second place finish had Jeden won his final match-up when it appeared he was on his way to a perfect game. Bueno, son of Magic City player manager and former Jai-Alai superstar, Benny Bueno, also had an exceptional day with a first, second, and a 3rd in the four singles games he played. CRB looked impressive and scored the first win of the 2021 season in game 1 and also won the show playoff in the very competitively-matched game 4 mid-singles game which was won by Kubala, one of Magic City’s top five late-game players.
Doubles game winners for game 5 & 7 were Juice-RonRon in post 1 and Jeden-Bradley in post 7. The Jeden-Bradley win was an incredible display of talent for this doubles team with a perfect game from post 7, the toughest post to secure victory from in the Spec 7 format. This first doubles tournament for 2021 is already shaping up to be some very competitive games with evenly matched teams. The teams of Juice-RonRon and Jeden-Bradley are currently 100% ITM for their two games each team has played. There are 10-teams for the doubles competition so not all teams get to play twice daily.
Trifecta pool were decent for Magic City Jai-Alai, averaging $1,527 per game over the 9-game performance, ranging from $1303 to $1,668, which is a huge increase in trifecta pool size from the recent Casino Miami Jai-Alai performances which ended on Monday. The $1.00 trifecta prices were phenomenal for day 1 and averaged a high $421 which is about double that of average season trifecta prices for Dania and Magic City Jai-Alai. Five of the $1.00 trifectas paid between $330 and $1180. The lowest $1.00 trifectas of the day were $48.70 on the easy 3-2-5 combination in singles game 6 which was a handicap special with Douglas-Carballo-Spinner along with the very easy 1-4-2 trifecta combination which paid $86.30 in the game 1 opener (CRB-Bueno-Vuelo). Note that Magic City offers $0.50 trifecta tickets, just like Dania Jai-Alai. Casino Miami Jai-Alai trifectas were not available for $0.50, Miami fans had to spend $1.00 for base trifecta wagers at that venue.
The$1.00 Jai-5 jackpot wager was nailed by one lucky bettor for the $2,000 guaranteed jackpot. The five winners of the game 3-7 sequence were: Bueno, Kubala, Juice-RonRon, Douglas, Jeden-Bradley. Fans wagered $1,244 into the Jai-5 opening day and this popular jackpot wager starts out again with another $2,000 guarantee for the Sunday noon performance if there is a single jackpot winner with all five winners correctly selected.
The Mighty Ocho wager, a $1.00 Pick 8 wager which works exactly like the Jai-5, has an increased guarantee for a single winner with all eight winners correctly selected for games 1-8. The jackpot was increased to $4,000 for 2021; previously this jackpot had a guarantee of $3,000. The Mighty Ocho wager first started in 2020 and no handicapper has had all 8-winners correct, although there have been winners with 7 of 8 winners several times. There were 2-winning tickets with 5 of 8 correct winners for the season opener that paid $24.40 each ticket holder.
Magic City Jai-Alai features two $1.00 Pick 3 wagers, game 4 and game 7. All Magic City pick-x wagers feature a low 20% takeout rate, which is 5% lower than competitor Dania Jai-Alai and fans took advantage and played more on the Pick 3 wagers than at the opening day of Dania Jai-Alai on Wednesday this week. Magic City fans wagered $753 and $466 on each of the Pick 3’s and the $1.00 payoffs paid quite handsomely to Jai-Alai handicappers with prices of $150.60 for the Kubala, Juice-RonRon, Douglas sequence and $372.80 for the Jeden-Bradley, Carballo, Carballo sequence.
The total handle for all the games was $20,222.
The next performance at Magic City is Sunday at noon and is followed by a Monday 1-pm performance.
Be sure to check out the new head-to-head matches at Magic City Jai-Alai at 10-am on Monday and Tuesday mornings (10-am to noon). These are non-wagering events. Check out the JAI-ALAI H2H page on the Magic City website.
Stu Neiman from Magic City Jai-Alai contacted SayHiLi.com with the following official player changes for 2021.
These four players are not returning:
Legend – major health issues/surgeries
Rock – knee injury/surgery
Fred – not returning, will be continuing with his FT job with Broward County
Limonte – left during 2020 meet and relocated to Orlando due to wife’s job change
Note that Asier is still part of the program but will not be participating in the January practices, “on-leave” status
These two players joined the 2021 Magic City Jai-Alai program (will practice in January and start on Feb 6th):
Spinner – from Dania
Ben Langhans – 17 yo brother of Douglas, playing under name “Benny”
Magic City Jai-Alai Schedule Update and U.S. National Jai-Alai ChampionshipInfo
The 10-weeks of added Magic City Jai-Alai resume on February 6th with a Saturday 4-pm performance, Sunday 1-pm performance and a Monday 1-pm performance. Performances will be at least 9-games each. The 10-week meet runs through mid-April and then the regular Magic City season will consist of games from early May through the end of November.
The 2nd U.S. National Jai-Alai Championship will be played at Magic City Jai-Alai in the month of September before the Dania fall meet.
Magic City Jai-Alai in Miami Florida concluded their 2020 short-court Jai-Alai season on Sunday, November 29th. The second and final doubles tournament was a nail-biter coming down the final doubles game #7 to see if Diaz-Carballo could tie the team of Asier-Douglas who had 17-wins. The team of Juice-RonRon upset the plans of Diaz-Carballo by winning the game from post 4.
The team of Asier-Douglas split $10,000 for their tourney win while Diaz-Carballo split $5,000 for their second place finish. The final standings for all 9-teams can be seen under “Wagering Info” under Magic City Doubles Tournaments on the SayHiLi.com website. Douglas has won all doubles tournaments since he started doubles tournament play at Magic City in 2019.
The top 3-finishers in the Magic City Singles Championship were awarded their checks on Sunday. Douglas won the singles championship again as in 2019 and took top prize of a cool $15,000 for his 179-singles wins. RonRon won 2nd place prize of $10,000 with his 151-singles wins and Bueno took home $5,000 for his 3rd place finish with 109-wins. El Barba was a close 4th place finish that came down to the final performance with 105 wins and is well deserving of an honorable mention here for his late-season run where he won the Golden Cesta Award weeks 24 through 26.
The 2020 Coaches Award was awarded to Magic City player Tennessee for the 3rd consecutive year. Tennessee is the “spirit-head” of the entire program. He is a vibrant bright personality and all-around “nice-guy” and even helped Limonte move recently.
The Most Improved Player Award went to Ben. Ben played an astonishing 898 games this season and was never sick, injured or scratched from any performance. Ben worked constantly on his game and was first one there and last to leave according to Stu Neiman.
Both the Jai-5 and the Mighty Ocho Jackpots were Forced-Out on Sunday. The Jai-5 already had a carryover jackpot of $2,983.60 going into Sunday and another $3,738 was wagered on it Sunday. After the 20% takeout rate on Sundays Jai-5 pool, the Force-Out was a total of $5,974 to be paid to the ticket holders with the most winners. Asier pulled somewhat of an upset in the leg 1 game 3 of the Jai-5, however, Asier had only been playing in one singles game lately and had won two of the three singles games in game 3 already this week. The remaining winners were Bradley in post 1 game 4, Diaz-Carballo in post 5 game 5, Douglas in post 8 game 6, and Juice-RonRon in post 4 game 7. There was one-team live for a 5 of 5 payout of $5,974 had the team of Diaz-Carballo won from post 6. The $5,974 force-out jackpot was paid out to (9) ticket holders with 4 of 5 winners correctly selected, with each ticket paying $663.70 for a $1 wager.
Asier, the son of Magic City Player Manager Arra, deserves an honorable mention for closing out the 2020 season by winning 3 of his 4 singles games for the week! His hard-throwing left side can be a bit too hot for some to handle when he gets going. Some of the older fans of the 1980’s Tampa roster have noticed Asier’s left side throws have similarities to those of the famous player, Laca.
The $1 Mighty Ocho wager only had $546.80 in the jackpot, but Magic City COO, Scott Savin, guaranteed a $3,000 payout to be split among ticket holders with the most winners correctly selected for the 8-game sequence. Bettors spent $2,920 into this Jackpot and after the 20% takeout had been removed from the $2,920 and the prior jackpot carryover of $546.80 was added, there was $2,882.80 to be paid back, so Magic City had to make-up only $117.20 to bring the Mighty Ocho Force-out up to the $3,000 guarantee. Going into the final leg of the Mighty Ocho, there were 4-posts covered for 6 of 8 payoffs (posts 1,3,5 for $3,000 each and post 8 with 2-tickets for $1,500 each). Douglas won game 5, result 5-1-3, and the $3,000 was paid out to a single winner with 6 of 8 winners correct. Games 1 and 2 of the Mighty Ocho were won by Diaz in post 1 and Ben in post 7, respectively.
Magic City short-court Jai-Alai action returns on February 6, 2021 to kick-off an additional 10-weeks of Jai-Alai next year before the regular season starts in May. Word from Stu is the performances will be on Saturday, Sunday and Mondays. Stay tuned for more info.
Don’t forget to tune in to the Jai-Alai Channel on Saturday and Sunday, December 5 & 6 for the US National Jai-Alai Championship at Magic City Jai-Alai. Tourney games start at 10 am each day. The US Nationals are only open to US citizens and like the Magic City 2020 Jai-Alai season, there is no live viewing of the event due to covid-19 precautions. Jai-Alai fans won’t want to miss this!
Congratulations Magic City Jai-Alai players, staff and management and all involved for providing this great entertainment opportunity, including the FREE Fantasy Jai-Alai League, during these trying times in 2020. Well Done!
The Golden Cesta Award competition came down to the wire. The amazing Douglas edged out RonRon with 11-wins in his 28-singles game appearances while RonRon had 10-wins. Congratulations Douglas! The next most singles wins was a tie for 5-wins between El Barba and Jeden. Juice was the only player to not get a win for the week (record 21-0-0-4 for week). We know Juice is capable of better so watch out this week! We might even get to see a back-flip Week 20? Diaz and Bradley only had 1-win each so watch out for them too!
Since the start of the 2019 season, Douglas holds the most Golden Cesta Award titles with 18. Douglas now has 5 in 2020 (5 of the last 7-weeks) and had 13 in 2019 including an incredible 10-weeks in a row. Click here for SayHiLi’s Golden Cesta Summary.
Here is an update on the 2020 Singles Championship where the winner gets $15k, $10k for 2nd and $5k for 3rd. Douglas leads with 117-wins and RonRon is 2nd with 95-wins. Third place is a tight competition with 9-players in contention right now ranging from 67-wins to 43-wins. Bueno is currently in 3rd with 67-wins, Ben has 61, Tennessee has 55, Ikeda has 54 (missed many weeks of competition or would likely be third). Ten other players have 25-wins or less and need to shift into another gear to get into contention. Click here for SayHiLi’s 2020 Singles Championship Summary.
Week 19 was practically another scratch-less week with scratch-free being the best scenario for Magic City bettors needing to advance wager. The only scratch was Carballo and this was only for the Thursday noon performance, the first performance of the week. Previously, Week 18 was a completely scratch-free week. Kudos to Magic City players for this great accomplishment in these tough times!
Here are some stats for Week 19 broken down by game-type:
Singles Games 1-4 El Barba and Jeden had the most wins with 5-each. The best win percentages were Anderluck (42.9%, 7-3-0-1, these were all game 4 with tougher competition but no Douglas/RonRon). El Barba had 23.8% wins and Jeden had 17.9% wins. The best ITM for these games was Bueno with 59.1% (22-3-8-2) and then 3-others at 57.1% (Anderluck, El Barba, Ikeda). Note Ikeda’s stats were all in game 4 (7-1-2-1).
Singles Games 5,6,8,9 Douglas had 39.3% wins and 78.6% ITM (28-11-6-5) while RonRon had 35.7% wins and 67.9% ITM (28-10-8-1). Carballo was third best with 8.3% and 33.3% ITM (24-2-2-4). Bradley was shut-out completely with 14-0-0-0 and Bueno was shut-out of the win-place with (21-0-0-6). Just wondering what the Amazing Fake Kreskin of Jai-alai (Chalk Talk poster donzi621) gonna say next after his recent Carballo trash-talking stunt (guess Carballo showed him, LOL). Donzi, please, enough…..everyone has slumps in Jai-alai and it’s real obvious to fans of the game you don’t know crap and talk smack. Even Dania’s Erik has slumps and has been completely out of the $$ for 4 and 5 consecutive performances at times. Donzi, please strap on a cesta and go on a court with Carballo (remember to put on the helmet).
Here are some full 2020 season stats broken down by early, mid, and late game types. Note the games for these have varied some in the Magic City entries, but this data is adjusted for that impact, so you won’t see these stats in your program.
True Early Games (like Week 20 games 1-3 ):
Bradley is leading with 28.6% wins, however, its a low sample of only 49-games (Bradley: 49-14-5-3).
Ben is second with 27.6% wins (134-37-17-19), Bueno is 3rd with 21.8% and the ITM leader at 59.1% (110-24-28-13), Jeden is a very close 4th at 21.5% (158-34-14-24). Juice, Limonte and Fred in that order are the low win percents (6.3, 4.3, 4.1).
Mid-Games (like Week 20 games 4 & 5), from one to three of the top 5-players, the top 5 (not in order) being Carballo, Douglas, Ikeda, Kubala, RonRon (but be sure to note that Anderluck is rising in the ranks with some great recent play so BBB, meaning bettors better beware).
Obviously Douglas & RonRon are strongest here when they have been in “mid-games.” Douglas has limited games here (some after being out of action for weeks) and RonRon started here when he arrived after the season start and hadn’t played/practiced for many months (Douglas: 33-16-4-3 and RonRon: 98-41-16-14). The real question is who follows these top 2 and in what order. Here’s the scoop for the full 2020 season on this:
Ikeda with 27.2% wins and 63.8% ITM (94-26-25-9)
Kubala with 19.2% wins and 49.6% ITM (125-24-17-21)
Carballo with 17.0% wins and 60.6% ITM (94-16-29-12)
Anderluck with 16.4% wins and 43.2% ITM (146-24-18-21)
Bueno with 15.9% wins and 42.7% ITM (232-37-36-26)
Some noteworthy stats for these mid-games for low-performers with 40+ games are: CRB 3.6% wins and 13.3% ITM (83-3-3-5), Juice 2.1% wins and 14.6 ITM (48-1-3-3), Legend 1.4% wins and 10.8% ITM (74-1-2-5).
Late-Games (like Week 20 games 6, 8 and 9). These are games with 4 or 5 of the top 5-players (the 5 mentioned above) and include 7 and 9-point games. These stats include 11-players with 40+ games played and are ranked from highest win percent to lowest win percent (there are 4-other players that have participated in these type of games, but only played in 7-games or less, so not including them due to the very low sample size).
As the best handicappers of the Jai-alai game know, one also needs to assess and include the impact of recent performance, so beware of relying totally on a player’s season performance stats. I could provide more stats, like the recent doubles games, however, I can’t spoon-feed all of the scoop to make this too easy for you, lol. I want to leave something for you to assess in your quest of competing with other bettors. Plus, the next doubles tournament should be starting soon.
Good luck to the players and bettors for Week 20 of Magic City Jai-Alai’s action-packed short-court Jai-Alai action! Thanks to Magic City players, announcers, support staff, and especially “Savvy Savin” for bringing us a GREAT ENTERTAINMENT OPTION in these tough times of a world-wide pandemic and offering Jai-Alai fans this option since May 1st of this year, TRULY AMAZING! Remember no more Saturday 8-pm performances, so no more date-night with Jai-Alai, dern. Stay tuned to SayHiLi.com for scratches and more interesting Magic City statistics and information.
A note to Jai-Alai fans, it’s difficult enough for Susie and myself to maintain the SayHiLi.com website for Magic City in our spare time, so we will only be focusing on Magic City Jai-Alai when competitor Dania Jai-Alai opens.
Last, but certainly not least, the Jai-Alai week for Magic City Jai-Alai Week 19 started out with a sad announcement by Stu Neiman about the loss of a good friend of his due to covid-19. Eugene McFeeley was a Magic City Jai-Alai fan and watched on the Jai-Alai Channel. He passed from covid-19 at Jacksonville Memorial’s ICU on Tuesday, September 8th. He was a Navy medic and had worked on the USS Forrestal Carrier and later became a psychiatric nurse. Thanks to this veteran for his honorable service to our country! Take a moment to say a prayer for Eugene and his wife Neva. Stu, we are sorry for the loss of your good friend.
