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 $$ and/or winless 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 upcoming 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).
Note: Update to the original post. Game 4 Week 20 does not feature Carballo, Ikeda or Kubala. These players are now in Game 5. Game 4 is close to a being classified a mid-game, but doesn’t include any of the top 5-players. Also, this game is not a true Early Game as it does not include Fred, Juice or Limonte. Game 4 should be a challenging and interesting game with all players being serious contenders for the win. The game classification for this Week 20 Game 4 lineup would essentially be an E+ (a step up from early games 1-3).
Mid-Games (like upcoming Week 20 game 5), featuring 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 upcoming Week 20 games 6, 8 and 9). SayHiLi’s Late Game classification includes 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).
Rank 1 – Douglas: 39.3% Wins, 67.3% ITM (257-101-43-29)
Rank 2 – RonRon: 25.5% Wins, 58.0% ITM (212-54-47-22)
Rank 3 – Ikeda: 11.1% Wins, 43.0% ITM (235-26-31-44)
Rank 4 – Carballo: 10.9% Wins, 40.3% ITM (248-27-34-39)
Rank 5 – Kubala: 9.5% Wins, 33.0% ITM (264-25-30-32)
Rank 6 – Anderluck: 7.9% Wins, 34.6% ITM (228-18-31-30)
Rank 7 – El Barba: 4.3% Wins, 21.7% ITM (46-2-2-6)
Rank 8 – Jeden: 3.2% Wins, 14.7% ITM (95-3-5-6)
Rank 9 – Bueno: 2.5% Wins, 24.9% ITM (241-6-22-32)
Rank 10 – Ben: 1.0% Wins, 18.8% ITM (208-2-17-20)
Rank 11 – Bradley: 0.0% Wins, 6.8% ITM (59-0-2-2)
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.
Bye-Bye from SayHiLi
Steve M