There are just 2-more weeks of Pelota games at the Magic City Fronton with 8-games on Sunday thru Tuesday each week at 1:30-pm EST.

The spring Pelota final performance is Tuesday, May 28 and you won’t want to miss the MANDATORY PAYOUT DAY, aka Force-Out Day where both the Jai-5 and the Mighty Ocho Jackpot Wager Bets will be paid out to the ticket holders with the most winning games correctly selected!

This means that the Jai-5 (a $1 Pick 5 Jackpot wager) will pay out a MINIMUM of $2,000 and the Mighty Ocho (a $1 Pick 8 Jackpot wager) will pay out a MINIMUM of $5,000! Yes, you are reading this correctly, a cool $5,000 to the ticket holder with the most games correctly selected on the Mighty Ocho!!!

Better be studying up on the stats as you won’t want to miss out on this one! Check out the Mo Crank Pelota Stat Pack to get the edge on the competition!

Pelota games resume this Fall (September) and will run through mid-December. There will be no Sunday performances this Fall due to NFL conflicts.

Both the Jai-5 and the Mighty Ocho will be mandatory payouts on Sunday, March 31. Don’t Miss Out!!

(3) consecutive Sundays, Feb 18-Mar 3, 2024, games 3-5, here are the same (8) teams for all (9) Doubles Super Series games. These teams were announced yesterday during the opening day of 2024 pelota games at the Magic City Fronton:

1. Goixerri-Manny
2. Olharan-Urbieta
3. Jairo-Nicolas
4. Zulaika-Julen
5. Douglas-Benny
6. Inaki-Lopez
7. Iturbide-Manu
8. Carballo-Aratz

NOTE:  Because a few players competing are only playing pelota games on these Special Sundays (they are Battle Court only players), it only made sense to lock-in several players into the same posts for the set of 9-games to avoid purchase of a full set of (8) numbered jerseys for posts 1-8.  The two teams with the same post for all 9-doubles games are:  Olharan-Urbieta Post 2, Inaki-Lopez Post 6. This actually makes for an interesting twist for the Magic City Fronton handicappers!

Games 1-2 singles on the Special Sundays will feature the game 3&4 mid-game players for the Daily Double.  The Jai-5 will encompass games 1-5 those days.  There will be a Pick 3 games 3-5, along with the other traditional pari-mutuel wagers.  These games will all be 7-point games with points doubling after post 8 plays for the first time (i.e. Spec 7 games).

There will be a break between games 5 and 6.  Games 6-11 will be the actual BC matches planned for those days but with pari-mutuel win wagering on them.  The entire games 1-11 will be considered one pari-mutuel event for FL Gaming.  Battle Court has no meaning to FL Gaming (not regulated by them) so these games 6-11 are being called H2H matches (head-to-head matches) with Win betting on what doubles team or singles player wins the match.  The point scoring for these H2H matches for purposes of FL gaming will be like this; you get 1-point by winning a set, first one to 2-points wins the match.  There will be the typical Battle Court sports betting (not in FL at this time of course) along with the Stu & Drew Battle Court announcing on these matches, however, the JAC chat will be cut-off after game 5 of the Special Sundays.

Be sure to get join Watch and Wager with an ADW account and if you already have one, make sure it’s funded to take advantage of these upcoming Special Sundays! Also, what great days to attend the games in-person at the Magic City Fronton for these Special Sundays. Sundays are the days for live-viewing for fans at Magic City so be sure to take advantage and even plan a trip around this!

Get ready for the REAL DEAL super-fast action-packed short-court Jai-Alai today at 1:30-pm EST! This is Magic City Fronton’s 7th year of Pelota Jai-Alai game action and the fans are ready and waiting! Pelota games are the Pari-Mutuel wagering games (aka Quiniela games) with 8-teams or singles players in each game with round-robin point scoring called “The Spectacular Seven” or Spec 7 where points are 1-point each until the 8-post has had their first chance to play, then points are double. The first team or singles player to 7-points (or more) wins the game.

Three players return from injuries today and make appearances in both singles and doubles games.

Bradley returns and plays in mid-game singles 3&4 (posts 6 and 4) and is paired with Inaki in doubles in post 3 of game 7. SayHiLi Steve apologizes for inadvertently missing the return of Bradley in the recent blog post on this site. Get ready for those powerful Bradley serves! Welcome back Bradley!

Kubala also makes his return in early-game singles 1&2 (posts 4 and 2) and is paired with the amazing Douglas in game 7 doubles from the lucrative post 2. This is definitely one of the teams to watch in this early doubles tourney for 2024.

Inaki returns to Pelota in Magic City Fronton’s feature games 6&8 against the top USA talent of Goixerri, Douglas, Manu, Jairo and more! These games are the most competitive singles games in US Jai-Alai history in far more than 20-years. Today Inaki has post 1 in game 6 and the tough post 7 in today’s game 8 Pelota finale. Inaki’s debut in the doubles tourney is with Bradley in game 7.

There are new tables set-up to capture the 2024 scratches and injury info on this website if and when those occur. Use the drop-down menu at the top of the page under “Pari-Mutuel Wagering” to find these tables and past history also. If there are no scratches for the day, there will be no line of scratch data appearing in this table and this scratch data table is updated quickly for inquiring minds.

Also, a big hearty welcome back to Stu Neiman and Andrew Blechman, the dynamic-duo of Jai-Alai announcing! Have a great 2024 everyone and Happy Handicapping! What a prelude to the big game or the superb owl today! I can’t wait!

The action-packed Magic City Pelota games start up again on this coming Sunday, Feb 11, with the debut of Magic City’s 7^th year, yes the 7^th year!  Congratulations Magic City Fronton for keeping the Jai-Alive!  Magic City Fronton’s Pelota games schedule for early in 2024 is Sunday through Tuesday at 1:30-pm. 

The Battle Court sports-betting version of Jai-Alai is Monday & Tuesday (5-pm EST following the Pelota games) and Friday (7-pm EST, Live fan attendance, been huge crowds) with a 6^th Battle Court team added for this Spring Meet called the Fireballs.  World-famous Lopez (#2 in the world) took to the Magic City Fronton court on Tue, Feb 6^th, for his first competitive match there with the Cyclones and won his first doubles match after quickly adapting to the short-court!  Congrats Lopez and welcome to the Magic City Fronton!

Pelota games start at 1:30-pm EST on Sunday and Sundays are also the day when fans can attend these fast-paced short-court games at the Magic City Fronton inside the Magic City Casino near the Miami International Airport (former home of the Flagler greyhound track).

All of the same wagers are still available at Magic City, including the high-paying Jai-5, a $1.00 Pick 5 jackpot wager games 3-7 with a $2,000 min guarantee, AND the Mighty Ocho, a $1.00 Pick 8 jackpot wager games 1-8 with a $5,000 min guarantee.  The record Jai-5 jackpot currently stands at a massive $27,348 payoff!  Sounds like ultra-Lobsta-time, right Pauly!

This new meet also kicks off another Magic City Fronton Doubles Tournament with firm teams for the tourney duration.  Here are the new 12-teams (front court-back court):

Anderluck-Julen, Bueno-Robin, Cool Fitness-Aratz, CRB-Benny, Douglas-Kubala, El Barba-Manu, Goixerri-Flores, Inaki-Bradley, Ikeda-Ben, Jeden-Manny, Jairo-Tennessee, Juice-Nicolas

SayHiLi’s Steve predicts the top 5-teams to watch here (in alphabetical order) are Anderluck-Julen, Douglas-Kubala, Goixerri-Flores, Ikeda-Ben and Jairo-Tennessee.

You may have noticed Kubala and Inaki are back!  SayHiLi wishes them the best for 2024.  Kubala had been out for a lengthy period following an Achilles injury in 2023.  Kubala is playing in games 1 & 2 on opening week, so this should be an interesting test to see his level of recovery after the long layoff.

Special Sundays are for 3-continuous Sundays and start on Feb 18 and end on March 3 and they are indeed special.  There will be 3-Doubles Super Series games each of those Sundays, games 3-5, which will also be the $1.00 Pick 3 games for these days with the low Magic City Pick-X 20% takeout rate.  These special doubles games will feature the same teams for the series of all 9-games with all the traditional Magic City wagers these days (except the Mighty Ocho).  Players in the Doubles Super Series include the top Magic City Pelota talent and also the following Battle Court players:  Lopez, Olharan, Zulaika, Iturbide and Urbieta.  There is also another big addition to pelota game wagering on games 6-11 on the Special Sundays, making them “Super ++ Special” those days.  Wait a minute, games 6-11??, yes  I said games 6-11, what?? 11-games??…. stay tuned to SayHiLi for these forthcoming details!  You won’t want to miss this!

Hold on now, Lopez playing in Pelota games?  Yes, I said Lopez is playing in a total of 9-Pelota doubles games at Magic City Fronton on the Special Sundays!  You won’t want to miss this!  Keep checking back to SayHiLi.com next week for the (8) Doubles Teams for the Doubles Super Series on the Special Sundays starting February 18!  You seriously won’t want to miss this if you call yourself a fan of any version of Jai-Alai; the top professional Jai-Alai talent in the USA, and No. 2 in the World, all competing at Magic City Casino on the Magic City short-court!

Be sure to get ready for Sunday’s Pelota opener this week and fund your WatchandWager account to be ready for some real super-fast Jai-Alai with south Florida’s top pro talent at the Magic City Fronton!  If you don’t have an account with Watch and Wager, go to watchandwager.com to sign up.  If you aren’t sure about your state’s eligibility for allowing Jai-Alai wagers then contact W&W customer service at 1-888-204-9150 between the hours of noon to 8-pm EST.  Connecticut only allows Jai-Alai wagering through mywinners.com so you must use them for your ADW (advance deposit wagering) if you reside in Connecticut.  Now if you aren’t in a Jai-friendly state, be sure to partner up with a friend who resides in a Jai-friendly state so you can split wagers with them by them placing your joint wagers in their account from that Jai-friendly state.  Sounds like a plan, so get working on that plan to “Keep the Jai-Alive” if you’ve been making excuses for not being able to wager!  The Jai-friendly state list changes periodically so be sure to check with the ADW Jai-Alai providers (W&W and mywinners) for updates.

Don’t forget – this Sunday at 1:30-pm for the debut of Magic City Fronton’s 7^th year AND The Big Game, both in the same day!  Wow, gonna be a great day of high-energy sports action!  I can’t wait!!!!!

Steve

Get ready, the world-famous Lopez takes to the short-court at the Magic City Fronton tonight with two appearances in doubles matches, Match 1 at 5-pm EST and Match 5 of the 6-scheduled matches:

Match 1: Ikeda-Lopez (+280) vs Douglas-Julen (-435)

I would assume Douglas-Julen are heavily favored due to the inexperience of Lopez on the Magic City short-court. This should be an interesting match!

Match 5: Flores-Lopez (+320) vs Correa-Manny (-500)

Another interesting match here with the Lopez team a big underdog. I’m sure some fans out there are dropping a few bucks on Lopez in both of these matches at those odds.

Former Magic City player, Michael Diaz, is a team manage for the new Battle Court team, the Fireballs! The Fireballs made their first BC appearance last night and won two of the 6-matches in some hotly contested ones. There were 8.0 total points available for teams to win and the final night score was Fireballs 2.5 and Chargers 5.5. Congratulations Michael on your new role as team manager!

Last night Zulaika received Player of the Day honors from Stu & Andrew for winning both of his matches. New player Cabrera of the Fireballs won both of his matches and is off to a great start with a big payday on his first appearance at Magic City Fronton.

If you have not yet seen Battle Court Jai-Alai matches, you are missing a real treat as this is some REAL fast short-court Jai-Alai action, the likes of which you have never seen before. Jai-Alai on the short court is a much faster game with more catches and returns per minute than the “traditional” courts in the US. A Jai-Alai player on the Magic City short-court has to be ready at all times and there’s no time to phone mom and say hi between shots like on the longer courts, haha. FACT: Short-courts the length of 120-feet like Magic City have been around in Spain and Cuba long before any of us were born! So what really is the definition of “traditional” anyway?

Super Bowl Sunday, February 11^th, marks the start of a new meet for the Magic City pelota games.  There are some interesting changes that will be in effect for Magic City on Sundays early in this meet and here is some scoop on what’s planned.

Sunday, Feb 11 will be regular pelota games with the standard 8-games.  There will be no Battle Court matches following the pelota games this day as it conflicts with NFL.

Now here is where it gets interesting!  The next three Sundays (Feb 18, Feb 25, Mar 3) there will be a 5-game pelota performance prior to the Battle Court matches.  The Jai-5 wager will encompass those five games.  Three of the 5-games, games 3-5, are part of a special Championship Doubles Series which may or may not include some players that are Battle Court only players.  After March 3, Sundays will be back to normal at the Magic City Fronton with the regular 8-games of high-energy pelota action.

Here is something new that’s added after the first five games on Sundays Feb 18 through March 3.  There will be pari-mutuel wagering on games 6-11 which are the 6-Battle Court matches those days.  Fans can wager on the outcome of the Battle Court matches, which I believe will be similar to wagering on the partido matches at Dania.  Those Battle Court matches will be played as the typical BC matches are, three sets to 6-single points, first one to win 2-sets wins the match.

Sunday pelota action begins at 1:30-pm.  The early meet for Magic City is Sunday, Monday and Tuesday at 1:30-pm while later in the year for the Fall meet the days switch to Monday through Wednesday to not conflict with NFL.

All games every Sunday are open to the public for Live Viewing!

Don’t forget the upcoming Battle Court matches start this coming Friday night, February 2^nd, at 7-pm EST!  There is an expanded Battle Court roster with 6-teams now instead of 5-teams.  The world-famous Lopez and four others have joined the BC roster.  You won’t want to miss this!

Mo Crank

Earlier in the current Dania meet a Chalk Talk poster (alq) brought up that payoffs were higher this meet than seen in the past and that poster was asking for supporting evidence.  I took a look at the data and yes, they were at the time, and that led me to take a deeper dive into the statistics in general.

First, let me say, I am only the presenter of statistics.  A Jai-Alai player owns their statistics.  I don’t own them nor do I create them.  Statistics are statistics, however they are facts.  I can’t and won’t make assumptions as to why they are what they are, who the heck knows, perhaps only God and/or that Jai-Alai player knows.  I can only present the factual statistics and they are what they are.  However, in my deep dive of statistics I have looked at them in a way I haven’t before and often with some very simplistic approaches.  Decide for yourself how to use them if you do at all, but I’m not a “bad guy” here and don’t make me out to be one.  I’m only presenting the factual stats, and in a way you have never seen before I’m sure as you won’t find this stuff in any Jai-Alai program.

The first info I’m going to present here is doubles player ITM records by day of the week for doubles games only, hmm, that could be interesting, particularly if you find yourself betting and losing certain days of the week.  Perhaps you will find your reason why here, or maybe not, but if so, you might consider an adjustment to your bet structure for certain days?  This is not a team assessment for doubles, but an assessment of individual  doubles player stats only.  This analysis should certainly show which players are most consistent one would think.  Be cognizant of the fact that Wednesdays and Saturdays include both the matinee and evening sessions, so those days represent a higher percentage of the doubles games played.

Here are a few interesting things to note from the above Day of Week ITM Chart for Doubles:

Urrutia, one of the strongest players on the roster and heavily bet,  starts out the week slow with much lower than his average performance on Wed & Thurs – are you getting beat up badly on those days betting on him?  I wouldn’t be surprised, the stats don’t lie.

Atain has an incredible 0.704 Doubles ITM on Thursdays and a very respectable 0.600 on Friday nights, however, he has a major dropoff for Saturday, interesting stuff.

Toucoullet has a very low 0.188 ITM on Friday nights, he’s already one who is probably on your radar with low performance, but Friday’s are the lowest.

Consistency (in alphabetical order), these 7-doubles players are most consistent throughout the week:  Bixente, Cabanillas, Jagoba, Laborde, Oyhenard, Txanika, Zugaitz

These are just a few things that I noticed from scanning the Day of Week Chart, I’m sure you can find more.

When I had done my deep dive into the Dania Jai-Alai doubles game data, I was thinking about how players benefit from the low posts, pp 123, whereas the hardest posts to win from are pp 567. Then a light bulb went off, I have the data, look at the data! Certainly players perform better from posts 123 than 567 and the data will support that, even from looking at the Dania players from 2018 thru 2021. These days with random post draw, in effect since the late 80’s strike ended, all players get to play in all post positions. Now in the “olden days” as many of you probably remember post-strike, the best players were almost always found in the 567 posts.

I performed the low post-hard post analysis and the data was as expected, except for one outlier from the current meet.  I even went as far to look at data from the previous Dania meets from 2018 forward for comparison.  So in the next charts you will see everything doubles summarized by player, with ITM’s from pp 123 versus ITM’s from pp 567 and a ratio of the ITM 567 / ITM 123, which in all cases was well below 1.00 and I mean well below 1.00 (average is 0.60), except in one case.  Again, I don’t own the stats, the Jai-Alai players own their stats, I am simply the presenter.  Don’t shoot the messenger!

I could have looked at singles records, but that data is more straight-forward and those games are much easier to handicap, so I took on the tough assignment, doubles games.  Hopefully this will help you with your Dania handicapping!  Good Luck!!

Dania meet concludes on Sunday, February 25th.

Magic City Pelota meet starts on Sunday, February 11th.

Magic City Battle Court matches start on Friday, February 2nd. The amazing Lopez plays BC now!

Be sure to support all versions of Jai-Alai in the USA!

Check out this recent press release for info about the new team owners and info about WJAL. A big welcome to Ray Lewis and Lawrence Taylor!

The Renegades were crowned the champions of the Battle Court Fall Championship on Friday night, December 15th, securing the victory in the first three matches by dominating the Cyclones. The fan turnout was impressive and they were loud, very loud, cheering for their Battle Court teams in the finals. Here are details of the three matches that were played. There were five matches planned, if needed, in this Battle Court Championship Final where the first team to win three matches would be the winner.

Favored Renegade team Goenaga-Ben (-335) won over the Cyclones Jeden-Manny (+230) in two sets with scores of 6-0 and 6-2 in the opening match of the night.

The underdog Renegade team of Williams-Aratz (+280) scored an unexpected runaway victory over the heavily favored Cyclone team of Ikeda-Bueno (-435) with a 6-1 victory in the third set. Set scores in order were 6-5, 2-6 and 6-1.

The third match featured Cyclones Carballo-Manu (+130) versus the Renegades Goixerri-Ubilla (-180) and the victory was clinched by the Renegades in two sets with scores of 6-2 and 6-1.

Goixerri is the team captain for the Renegades and has been a dominating force at the Magic City Fronton inside the Magic City Casino in Miami, Florida. Congratulations to the Rebote Renegades on their victory!

Battle Court matches resume in February 2024 with a 6th team to be added to the Battle Court competition. The next draft is scheduled for January 9th. Five new players, including the world famous Lopez, ranked #2 in the world, will be joining the Battle Court roster. Things will definitely be heating up in Miami!

Mo Crank, the originator and brains behind the Mo Crank Stat Packs for Magic City Pelota and Battle Court, along with the Dania pari-mutuel games, is the new owner of the SayHiLi.com website.

Mo has done a tremendous job providing Jai-Alai statistics to the public in formats never before seen by the public eyes. He was also a great help with programming efforts for the Magic City Battle Court weekly contest held earlier this year.

Mo became a fan of Jai-Alai during the pandemic shutdown and came across Magic City Jai-Alai on the internet when there were no other sports at the time in the US. A great thanks to Magic City for keeping the Jai-Alive during this time where nearly 1-million Americans lost their lives.

I will continue to assist Mo as needed in the transition and wish him the best in operating the SayHiLi site!

Happy Holidays to all!

Steve M.

Benny Bueno, player’s manager for the Dania fronton to the north of Magic City fronton, mentioned last night again about a two big surprises coming for fans and it has international implications.  He has been hinting on this since Wednesday matinee and tonight is the planned release of this “big news.”

TONIGHT:  after game 8 be sure to be tuned in (this timing is likely to be after the finish of the Magic City Battle Court Jai-Alai sports betting matches which start at 7-pm EST)

If you want to hear Benny’s tease on this announcement, go to the Dania YouTube video from last night’s performance (Thursday 12/7) and at approximately 2:18:30 (~4 minutes to game 7).

Per Benny the surprise is for next weekend at Dania, Dec. 15-16, and he’s telling fans they need to be there at Dania.  This is already a huge weekend for Jai-Alai in south Florida with the Magic City Championship Battle Court Finals at 7-pm Friday night at the Magic City Fronton inside the Magic City Casino in Miami (formerly Flagler dog track).  Magic City Battle Court has been growing in popularity and the stands are filled with fans at the Friday night live Battle Court performances.  The world-famous Lopez is joining Battle Court for 2024!

Gotta love the resurgence of Jai-Alai in the USA whether it’s the more traditional long-court or short-court frontons!  Thanks Magic City and Dania!

————–UPDATE—————-UPDATE————–

The big news is that Goiko and Leke are coming to town and will be here next weekend.

Leke will be playing at Dania for approx 30-days and will start playing pari-mutuel games on Saturday matinee.

Goiko will be at Dania for Friday thru Sunday next week, and the news is even more surprising, he will be playing in the Dania pari-mutuel games for those 4-performances.

Expect some big bet pools from you guys with the news of this! roll-up your pennies and head to the bank and cash-out those aluminum cans you have stacked up in the garage.

Some really big names are joining the Magic City Battle Court Jai-Alai roster for February 2024 including top world-renowned talents Lopez and Olharan.  The other four new players are Duke-Hernandez, Chris Cabrera, Amigorena and Foronda.

The world-renowned Lopez last played in the US at the Miami Jai-Alai fronton during the 2020-21 meet competing against the likes of Goiko, Aritz and Erik.  Olharan played at Ft. Pierce during 2013-14.  Both Lopez and Olharan have extensive international circuit experience.  Duke-Hernandez has played at the Dania, Miami and Ft. Pierce frontons as well as the international circuit.  Chris Cabrera played at Calder Jai-Alai from 2019-2021 under the player name of El Nino while Amigorena and Foronda were very popular regulars at Dania Jai-Alai for a number of years, both departing in 2021.

Iriondo is the only current player not playing at Magic City next year as he is returning to Spain to finish studies for his engineering degree.  Iriondo is a fan favorite and will be sorely missed!  We wish him the best with his engineering studies and career.

Magic City Fronton will be officially announcing this information today, Dec. 4, during their Pelota Game broadcast with game 1 starting at 1:30-pm EST.  Stu Neiman and Andrew Blechman will be discussing this info on The Jai-Alai Network on YouTube so don’t miss out be sure to have your questions ready for the chat where they interact with the fans!  Coverage of today’s 8-Pelota games (aka Pari-Mutuel games) starts at 1:20-pm EST.

Here is the YouTube link:  https://www.youtube.com/c/jaialainetwork

The six new players are joining the Magic City roster for the expansion of Battle Court Jai-Alai which will grow to 6-teams from the current 5-team World Jai-Alai League (WJAL).  This expansion of an additional Battle Court team will likely require additional match day(s) with exact info TBD.  The next Battle Court draft is scheduled for January 9 so players and teams can prep for the next Battle Court season which starts in early February.   These new players will make the fast-paced  short-court Jai-Alai Battle Court matches even more competitive at the Magic City Fronton.

Battle Court sports betting match wagers are currently done through DraftKings or BetRivers online sportsbooks.  DraftKings is currently available for Jai-Alai Battle Court sports wagers for customers in AZ, IA, IL, KS, NH, MA, NJ, OR, PA, TN, WA, WY, WV plus Ontario, Canada.  BetRivers is currently available in AZ, CO, IA, IL, NJ, PA, VA, WV plus Ontario, Canada for your Battle Court sports wagers.  Expansion efforts for Battle Court sports wagers are ongoing so stay tuned for more states to follow.

Magic City will also be announcing an additional treat for Jai-Alai fans; (3) Sundays of Pelota Games (aka pari-mutuel Jai-Alai games) in February 2024 where there will be (3) feature Championship Doubles Pelota Games each Sunday where the best players will compete, including the new Battle Court players.  These games will have the standard 8-teams and be played under the traditional Spec-7 format where points double after the first round and the first team to 7-points or more wins the game.  Some details are still being finalized; however there will be more games than the Magic City traditional 8-games on these special Sundays.  These special Sundays will be LIVE events where fans are invited to attend the Magic City Fronton at the Magic City Casino in Miami, Florida!

Note:  The current Fall 2023 Battle Court season has two key events coming very soon this month; the Playoff Dec. 11 at 5-pm EST and the Championship Final on Dec. 15 at 7-pm EST.  The Dec. 11 Playoff is between the 2^nd and 3^rd place teams to decide who faces off against the 1^st place team in the finals on Friday night, Dec. 15.  Fridays are always LIVE events where fans can enjoy the exciting Battle Court Jai-Alai action for FREE at the Magic City Fronton!

Ways to Watch Battle Court:  https://jaialaiworld.com/battlecourt#WaysToWatch

Author:  Steve M. from SayHiLi.com

12/4/2023 @ 11:55 am EST

Three big name players have signed contracts to join the Magic City Battle Court competition for 2024.  Their names will be announced soon in a press release which may happen as soon as next week.

One of the big names is sure to rattle the world of Jai-Alai according to Stu Neiman.

Battle Court Jai-Alai matches are the sports betting matches offered by Magic City Fronton at the Magic City Casino in Miami, Florida.  These sports betting matches are held three days a week and are rapidly rising in popularity. The matches are currently available for wagering through DraftKings and BetRivers in 14-states with more states to be added in the near future.  Stay tuned!

For more info check out this link:  Magic City Battle Court

Click HERE for latest YouTube video on the 2nd Dania Invitational Tournament featuring Benny Bueno.

Latest info per Benny is 22-total players for roster. There are now 13-returning players not 15-players and 9-new players. Mandiola and Manci have canceled and will not be returning.

The season starts on Friday night December 1st and ends on Sunday matinee, February 25th.

There is an added Wednesday matinee for this meet, so now 7-performances a week. Wednesday thru Saturday nights at 7-pm EST and Wed/Sat/Sun matinees at 1-pm EST.

Partidos will be game 10 on Friday nights in January and February.

There will be 3 or 4 of these videos with updates.

Let’s hope there will be a Pick 4 this season, it would definitely help spark some more wagering interest.

Thanks Dania!

Check out this interesting story about Hong Kong horse racing – Click Here

Options for sports wagering on Magic City Fronton’s Battle Court matches are on the rise with the addition of DraftKings as an new partner.  Previously BetRivers was the only option for Jai-Alai sports bet wagering, offering (8) states; AZ, CO, IA, IL, NJ, PA, VA and WV.  DraftKings is available in all of these eight states except Colorado and also offers Jai-Alai sports bets in (6) additional states; KS, NH, OR, TN, WA and WY.  Thus there are now (14) states and with Massachusetts just recently approved for Jai-Alai sports wagers, there will soon be (15) states available as DraftKings operates in MA.

Jai-Alai sports wagering has been approved in Nevada for some time, but BetRivers and DraftKings do not operate in this state, so a new provider is required to get Nevada added to the picture.

Don’t miss out on the fall Battle Court season which just started.  Friday nights at 7-pm EST are a great family outing for (6) Battle Court matches each Friday night at the Magic City Fronton located inside the Magic City Casino near Miami International Airport.  The entire six matches take around three hours and it’s FREE to enter and watch.  You might even run into some celebrities.  Battle Court matches are also on Monday and Tuesday at 5-pm EST.  These are not live attendance events like Friday nights, but all matches can be seen on Magic City Fronton’s YouTube channel. 

Magic City Fronton has some of the top Jai-Alai talent in the world with players like Goixerri and Manu! Also, for those sports bettors wanting to get an edge on wagering on these Battle Court Jai-Alai matches, be sure to check out Mo Crank’s Jai•Speed Stat Pack to get the latest fall Battle Court stats and also the Spring 2023 Battle Court stats on the SayHiLi.com website.

Michael Diaz has returned to the Magic City Fronton, but not as a Jai-Alai player #30, but as an employee behind-the-scenes.

Last year Diaz had moved to Colorado and he has now returned and started working Monday, September 11, working the sound board at Magic City.

Diaz won the last game of his playing career at Magic City.

SayHiLi wishes Michael the best in his new role at Magic City Fronton!

The Magic City Fronton pros take to the court for the Fall Meet of the 6th year of the Pelota games (aka Pari-Mutuel games) today with 8-games which start at 1:30-pm Eastern time. It seems like it’s been a long wait over the hot summer for the Pelota games to start again, however it’s only been a bit over 2-months since the last day of Pelota action on June 27th.

This should be an interesting day in many respects and after today’s 8-games many fan questions will be answered. Questions such as these:

Is Robin ready for a full slate of both singles and doubles games after being out for 11-months with a knee injury?

Will we get to see a back-flip from Juice? Has Iriondo continued improving? Will CRB pick-up where he left off?

How will the new doubles team Douglas-Tennessee fare?

And of course everyone wants to know: Will fan favorite the “Bearded Wonder” get a win today? He has tough posts 5 & 6 in early singles and El Barba is paired with Manu in doubles games 5 & 7, so a team win there is a definite possibility?

These are only a few questions and time will tell, but one thing I do know is that Magic City Fronton puts on a great show of short-court Jai-Alai talent and I wouldn’t miss it.

The 2023 Pelota Singles Championship continues where it left off: Goixerri leads with 29-wins followed by Benny with 27-wins, Nicolas is third with 26-wins while former roommates Anderluck & Douglas each have 25-wins, next most wins are CRB and Julen with 21-wins each.

Looking at percentage wins for singles games, Bradley leads for now with 33.3% but it’s only for 12-singles games played. Ignoring the Bradley stat for low games played, the Singles WIn % leader is Anderluck with 25.3% followed by Goixerri with 24.8% and Douglas is third with 21.4% wins. Keep in mind the singles championship is won by the player with the most singles wins.

The SayHiLi computer has been simulating games and the prediction of the two best win bets of the day are found in the early games: Bradley in game 1 and Julen in game 3

SayHiLi wishes the best for players in this Fall Meet and stay safe! Also, don’t forget about the Live Friday night Battle Court action at 7-pm when Fall Battle Court starts on September 8th.

The pari-mutuel program for the highly popular Magic City Fronton Pelota games is now available and can be found on the Magic City Casino website under “Jai-Alai.” Fall opening day is the day after Labor Day on Tuesday, September 5th with a 1:30-pm EST start time.

Robin is back and playing in singles games 3 & 4 along with appearances in the first Fall Doubles Tournament games 5 & 7. SayHiLi wishes him the best in this Fall opening week debut after his long recovery. Bueno is back in action too for Pelota games; he did play in the USNJAC tourney in August and was playing well. Cool Fitness is not in the program for opening week and we hear he is still recovering from his wrist injury but is cleared to practice. Kubala has a long road to recovery with the torn ACL and is not expected to return this year. SayHiLi wishes all of the sidelined Magic City Fronton professionals the best in their road to recovery from their injuries. Spinner had decided to discontinue with the Pelota games last fall and focus on Battle Court after he found a lucrative job offer.

Check out the program for all of the new teams for the first Fall Doubles Tournament. Juice is paired with Goixerri and Tennessee is paired with Douglas. A few other teams are El Barba-Manu, Jairo-Bradley and Bueno-Nicolas. Aratz, who is not showing up in the doubles entries, will be partnered with Cool Fitness when he returns to action.

The “Jai-ly” popular Jai-5 wager is back with the $2,000 guarantee to a single winning ticket holder for the Pick 5 sequence from games 3-7 along with the Mighty Ocho which has a $5,000 guarantee to a single winning ticket holder of this Pick 8 wager for games 1-8. These are both structured after the popular horse racing Pick 6 Jackpot wagers where there can be ONLY one winning ticket for the entire jackpot to be paid out. The record Jai-5 payout at Magic City is a whopping $27,348! The Magic City Fronton Jai-5 and Mighty Ocho wagers are both $1 minimum wagers.

The Fall Pelota schedule is Monday thru Wednesday at 1:30-pm EST. The Live Jai-Alai day is currently scheduled for Mondays and this is subject to change. Doors open at 1-pm for the Live Monday performances.

Be sure to sign-up for watchandwager.com for on-line wagering capability if you haven’t already to take advantage of the attractive sign-up bonus and cash incentives.

Here are the details for the upcoming 2023 2nd Annual World Super Court at Magic City Fronton in Miami, Florida on Saturday and Sunday, August 26-27.

The 2023 WSC is a 2-day Invitational Tournament this year. The following is information received from Andrew Blechman of Magic City Fronton.

Instead of a bracket there will be a group of play round similar to the World Cup in soccer. There will be two groups (A and B), each with 5-teams. Each team will play (4) qualifying matches against each of the other teams in their group on Saturday, August 26th, the first day of the WSC. The top two teams in each group will advance to the semi-finals on Sunday. The first place team in group A will play the second place team in Group B, and vice versa. The winners will play each other for the finals for the 1st and 2nd place prize money.

Saturday features (20) total matches to 8-points each, with 10-matches for each of group A and B. Sunday’s final matches will be like the Battle Court matches with 3-sets to 6-points each, with the first team to win 2-sets advancing in the tourney.

Saturday matches start at 11-am EST

Sunday finale matches start at 1-pm EST

Additional info added 8/22 am:

Here are the 10–teams for this invitational tourney. The 2022 WSC first and second place finishers: Goixerri-Aratz and Inaki-Julen. Plus these 8-additional teams: Alex-Douglas, Bixente-Tambour, Carballo-Ubilla, Hormaetxea-Urbieta, Iturbide-Nicolas, Patxi-Manu, Urriesti-Manci and Zulaika-Benny.

Friday marks the start of the 4th Annual USNJAC Tournament at the Magic City Fronton in Miami, Florida. Inaki (previously known as Goitia at Dania) will attempt to defend his 2022 singles title along with the tough brother doubles team winners, Goixerri & Aratz.

This tourney features the Pro Division on Saturday & Sunday and the Masters Division (aka Amateur) on Friday & Sunday. Starting times (EST) for the tourney days are shown below and this exciting tournament can be seen on watchjaialai.com.

Friday 10-am, Saturday 11-am, Sunday 1-pm

Here is the Pro event prize money:

Singles $7,500 for 1st, $2,500 for 2nd

Doubles $10,000 for 1st, $5,000 for 2nd

Here is the Masters (Amateur) event prize money:

Singles $1,000 for 1st, $500 for 2nd

Doubles $1,000 for 1st, $500 for 2nd

Be sure to tune in!

The 2023 Fall Battle Court Draft took place at the Magic City Fronton on Tuesday night, August 8th at 6:30-pm. Here are the final results and the doubles teams that were selected to represent the 5-Battle Court teams that night.

The Fall Battle Court season starts on Friday, September 8th. Don’t miss out on this exciting Jai-Alai action!

The Fall Battle Court Draft Event is tomorrow night at the Magic City Fronton in Miami, Florida. The draft starts at 6:30-pm EST and can be seen live on watchjaialai.com. Coverage starts 5-minutes earlier at 6:25-pm.

Magic City World Jai-Alai League Battle Court Draft Rules

Draft Schedule – A player draft will be held approximately 15 to 45 days prior to the ensuing season of Battle Court.

Player “Freezes” – The teams finishing last and 2nd to last in the prior season will “freeze” two (2) players, the teams finishing 2nd and 3rd in the prior season will freeze up to three (3) players and the prior season’s championship team shall have the right to freeze up to four (4) players on their current roster prior to the draft. A “frozen” player will remain at their same Singles ranking for the upcoming season of Battle Court. The decision of who to freeze will be made by the team owner or, in the event no team owner exists, by the League Office. “Frozen” players must be submitted to the League Office no less than fourteen (14) days prior to the draft.

Note:  A player can only be “frozen” at his Singles ranking for three full Battle Court seasons exclusive of a number “1” ranked player. Going into the next season, if the team wants to “freeze” that same player again, the team must move the player up to a higher Singles rank. If they do not choose to move the player up in ranking, he will become eligible for selection in the ensuing draft.

Draft Order – The drafting order will be determined by the reverse order of finish in the previous season. Each round starts with the team that finished with the least amount of total points and ends with the Battle Court Champions. In the event an expansion team is added to the League, they will draft in the middle position when they are increasing the number of teams in the League to an odd number and directly after the middle position when they will constitute an even number of teams in the League. In rounds where teams have protected players, they will “forfeit” their pick in that round, and the other teams will automatically “move up” in the draft selection order. Any players not drafted within two (2) subsequent rounds of their prior season’s Singles ranking level will automatically be placed on the “Taxi Squad” and not be eligible for draft selection until the following season. At that time, they will be open to selection in any round of the draft.

Team Doubles Pairings – Upon conclusion of the “drafting” portion of Draft Day, the owner, General Manager, and players will have approximately 75 minutes to compose their six (6) Doubles pairings and submit them for approval and announcement by the League Office. A Doubles pairing may not consist of the number five (5) and number six (6) ranked players on any team.

If anyone is interested in Jai-Alai programs there are many to choose from right now on eBay with almost every USA fronton represented (Chicago Rainbo and NY Hippodrome excluded). Many new listings in the past several days are very high quality ones which are generally very hard to find. Just do a search for “Jai-Alai Programs” and be sure to select “recent listings.”

EBay seller “wheresrusty_612” has at least 25-listings for some impressive programs and most are on auction, as opposed to Buy It Now ones, so some good deals for high quality programs could happen over the next 5-days! Be sure to check for “writing” in programs and if the seller doesn’t list whether there’s writing or not. One can pretty much expect there is writing if it’s not mentioned so be sure to ask the seller if you are unsure after looking at photos of Jai-Alai programs in a seller’s listing. Also, some sellers won’t show you the photos of pages with writing, so beware and ask questions if unsure.

There is a very rare 1937 Fronton Mexico one and a high quality hard-to-find 1964 Daytona Jai-Alai program listed by seller “wheresrusty_612” who also lists a lot of greyhound racing programs from time to time. There have been some very high prices on greyhound racing programs the last few years with some selling for over $100. With only 2-greyhound tracks left in the USA, both in W. Virginia, collecting greyhound racing programs has become very popular and prices have gone up.

I recommend you take a look at eBay now as it’s rare for so many decent Jai-Alai programs to be available at one time on eBay.

Bradley returned to Magic City short-court Pelota action in top form on Sunday winning both of his singles games.  His first win came in game 1 with a perfect game runout from the tough post 7 and then he clinched his 2^nd win in game 2 from the 3-post.  Those wins rewarded Daily Doubles bettors with a handsome price of $36.20 for a $2 ticket.  The game 1 win resulted in a trifecta outcome of 7-6-5 which paid a whopping $883.30 for the $1 price.  The “dogs” were a barkin’ on the Magic City fronton sidelines after both Bradley wins and a Golden Cesta Award for Bradley in week 16 singles would be no surprise.

The Pelota Press site has reported that Kubala is sidelined with a torn ACL with surgery and rehab to follow.  SayHiLi wishes the best for Kyle and a speedy recovery.  Bradley has replaced Kubala in the second doubles tournament of the year and we are expecting some more barkin’ dogs with the Bueno-Bradley team in the mix.  Spinner is no longer playing Pelota (reason unknown) but will be playing in the Battle Court matches.  Cool Fitness is still sidelined with his wrist injury but we expect him back soon.

Inaki was back for Sunday’s performance and had an exceptional day.  Inaki-Tennessee team played in both doubles games and lost game point in game 5 but got 2^nd place and had a perfect game runout from the tough post 7 in game 7.  They are definitely a tough team and Tennessee is a solid backcourt player, exceeding expectations.  Inaki also had a 2nd place finish in game 8 singles. Currently, Jairo-Ben lead the 2^nd doubles tournament with 8-wins and Flores-Manny are second with 6-wins.  Two teams which are surprisingly off to slow starts are Julen-Iriondo with a record of 23-0-3-0 and El Barba-Douglas at 32-1-1-1.

The 2023 Singles Championship is tightly packed with 8-players with 15-22 wins.  Benny leads with 22-wins followed by Anderluck & Nicolas with 21-wins, CRB & Douglas with 20-wins, Goixerri (last years winner) with 19-wins, Julen with 16-wins and Jairo with 15-wins.

The first part of the 2023 Pelota season concludes on Tuesday, June 27^th, where both jackpots will be forced-out.  The Jai-5 jackpot wager has been a tough cookie to crumble in recent weeks and has now gone 16-consecutive performances without a single winner with all 5-games correctly selected by the bettors.  The jackpot now stands at $6,548.50 for Monday’s Pelota games.  The Pelota games return in the fall on September 5^th and run through December 5^th with a Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday schedule at 1:30-pm.  Don’t forget the two big tournaments in August, USNJAC and the World Super Court.

Trifecta wagering keeps growing and several trifecta pools were close to the $3000 mark at Sunday’s games.  Be sure to tune in and support the Magic City Fronton.  Watch and Wager has a great betting platform so be sure to check out the watchandwager.com website.  If you aren’t sure if your state is approved for Jai-Alai wagering, be sure to call Watch and Wager’s customer service line (1-800-836-2182).  Their customer service is top of the line!

The Lifestyle Miami Chargers stunned the Wall Warriors last night at the Magic City Fronton Battle Court Spring Championship in Miami, Florida before a packed house.  There were (5) doubles matches slated for the finals and the first team to win 3-matches would be named the Championship Winner Spring 2023.  Should a team secure the Championship victory before the 5^th match, the remaining matches would be cancelled.

The first doubles match featured the level-1 teams of Zulaika-Benny for the Chargers versus Inaki-Nicolas of the Warriors.  BetRivers had Inaki-Nicolas favored to win the match.  Zulaika-Benny appeared well on their way to victory in set three with a 5-2 lead, needing only one more point to secure the first match win for the Chargers.  Four straight errors by Zulaika allowed Inaki-Nicolas to steal the 3^rd set win and the first match of the Championship Final (Match 1 set scores, Warriors:  6-3, 3-6, 6-5).

Match 2 was a level 2 doubles match featuring Iturbide-Spinner for the Chargers versus Ikeda-Julen of the Warriors.  BetRivers had Iturbide-Spinner favored to win.  After a nail-biting first set win of 6-5 by the Chargers, they rattled the Warriors with a 6-0 shutout in set two, clinching the match for the Charger’s Iturbide-Spinner, thus offsetting the Charger’s match-1 loss (Match 2 set scores, Chargers:  6-5, 6-0).

Match 3 was a level 3 doubles match featuring Zulaika-Iriondo for the Chargers versus Bueno-Nicolas of the Warriors.  BetRivers had this match as a toss-up (-117 for both teams).  As expected this was a close match, but was won by Zulaika-Iriondo in two-sets by scores of 6-4 and 6-5.

Leading 2-1, the Chargers needed only one more match win to take home the trophy, 1^st place prize money and the bragging rights.  The Chargers did not disappoint their fans and secured the victory in 2-sets 6-4 and 6-1 in the 4th match with the Charger’s Iturbide-Iriondo picking off Inaki-Roque of the Warriors.  BetRivers had the Warriors favored to win this match (Warriors -200 and Chargers +145).  Had the Warriors won the 4^th match, the 5^th match would have been played with the Charger’s Williams-Benny duo versus the Warrior’s Bueno-Julen.

SayHiLi congratulates the winning Lifestyle Miami Charger team owners and the team members Zulaika, Iturbide, Benny, Spinner, Iriondo and Williams.  Three of the Charger’s team members are new to the Magic City Fronton Battle Court roster for 2023; Zulaika, Iturbide and Iriondo.  Also, compliments are in order for the Magic City Fronton owners, management and support team for all their hard work in promoting the game of Jai-Alai.  Also, recently another sports betting partner, DraftKings, has started taking wagers on Battle Court matches too, so this expansion is exciting news for the Magic City Fronton short-court Jai-Alai program!

The Battle Court Fall Season 2023 kicks off on Friday, September 8^th and runs through Friday, December 15^th.  There will be a Fall Battle Court draft in late August.  Be sure to support the Magic City Fronton Pelota games (pari-mutuel games) which are played on Sunday through Tuesday at 1:30-pm now through June 27^th.  Fans can attend the live games on Sundays.  The USNJAC and WSC (World Super Court) tournaments are played in August this year so don’t miss out on these great events too!  Pelota games also return in September and run into early December this year with a Monday thru Wednesday schedule.

Steve M, SayHiLi.com

Effective Monday, May 1, 2023, DraftKings has started offering betting on Magic City Fronton’s Battle Court Jai-Alai matches to customers in states they operate where Jai-Alai is approved.  Previously, BetRivers was the lone sports betting company offering Jai-Alai sports betting on the Magic City Fronton Battle Court matches.

DraftKings is an American daily fantasy sports contest and sports betting company with headquarters in Boston, MA.  DraftKings originated in 2012 and is now a publicly traded company and one of the leaders in the US.  DraftKings accounts can be opened by 21+ for new users only and is available in AZ, CO, CT, IL, IN, IA, KS, LA, MD, MI, NH, NJ, NY, OR, PA, TN, VA, WV, & WY. Full T&C’s apply.

Magic City’s pari-mutuel games, called their Pelota games, ended the 10-week 2023 meet on Tuesday, April 18th.

The Pelota players get a short 1-week break and resume Pelota action on Sunday, April 30th. Pelota games will be played on Sunday/Monday/Tuesdays at 1:30-pm EST until June 27th. There will be no pelota games for July and August as those are tournament months where the court will be used for tournament practice and for the USNJAC and World Super Court events which take place in August this year.

Pelota action resumes on Tuesday, September 5th where there’s a schedule change. These pari-mutuel games will be played on Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday at 1:30-pm EST until Tuesday, December 5th.

Be sure to check out Magic City’s other version of Jai-Alai called Battle Court.

The 4th Annual USNJAC Tournament at the Magic City Fronton in Miami, Florida is slated for August 11-13 this year. This tournament features both the Masters Division (amateur) and Pro Division with both singles and doubles events for each division. The USNJAC Tournament is open only to U.S. citizens. The Magic City Fronton is located on the 2nd floor inside the Magic City Casino.

Last year’s Pro Singles winner was Inaki ($7,500) with Aratz taking 2nd place ($2,500). The Pro Doubles winner was the brother team of Goixerri-Aratz ($10,000) with another brother team of Inaki-Julen ($5,000) securing 2nd place.

The 2nd Annual World Super Court Doubles Tournament is a 2-day event this year and is also at the Magic City Fronton. The dates for this professional tournament event is August 26-27 which is a Saturday/Sunday event. This year the tournament is an Invitational Tournament unlike last year when the tourney had (4) separate qualifying events, including one overseas qualifier, before the final event at Magic City Fronton with the 8-top teams.

The first WSC tourney winners were the Magic City brother’s team of Goixerri-Aratz ($25,000) with another Magic City brother’s team, Inaki-Julen, finishing 2nd ($10,000).

The SayHiLi website has a complete history for both the USNJAC and World Super Court events on this site.

Magic City Fronton is closed for Pelota games and Battle Court matches the months of July and August this year. Pelota games at Magic City feature the traditional pari-mutuel wagering for Jai-Alai while Battle Court matches feature the new sports wagering on Jai-Alai matches. Both types of these short-court Jai-Alai performances at the Magic City Fronton in Miami are rising in popularity. Short-court Jai-Alai on Magic City Fronton’s 120′ x 33′ court are among the fastest games of Jai-Alai available for fans; much faster-paced than the long-court games where the courts typically range from 170-180 feet in length.

The Magic City Fronton Jai-5 wager has now gone 15-consecutive performances without a single winning ticket with 5 of 5 correct winners. The Jackpot currently stands at $7,468 going into today’s performance.

SayHiLi.com estimates there will be a lot of attention on this Jackpot wager today and expects the payoff to be in excess of $10,000 if there is ONE lucky winner with 5 of 5. Jackpot wager rules dictate there must only be one single winning ticket with 5 of 5 correct winners for the Jackpot to be paid out. Worst case scenario for those taking on this risk and having one of multiple 5 of 5 winners or the most correct winners is a share of 40% of what was wagered on the Jai-5 for that performance.

The Jai-5 is a $1.00 wager and the Jackpot has been paid out 133 times since the bet first started.

As always, Good Luck to those participating!

Steve M.

New info on this added to “Jai-Alai Memorabilia Collecting” under Other Links

Be sure to make your entries for the next FREE SayHiLi Battle Court Contest. Entries can be submitted for Contest #5 from Wednesday through Friday at 6:50-pm. Winners have been receiving some nice contest prize packages in the mail with even more Jai-Alai memorabilia items than advertised, so don’t miss out! Counting Contest #5 there are 6-more opportunities to WIN!

Check out the latest on this breaking news from today – CLICK HERE

Sunday’s last game at Magic City had a Trifecta pool of $2,687.  That may not seem like a large number, however, it was the largest Trifecta pool for Magic City Fronton since 8/14/2022.  The Average Trifecta pool for the 8-games at Sunday’s matches was $2,052.

Not only are the Trifecta pools showing promise, but the Average $1.00 Trifecta payoff for the first 6-performances, 48-games, at the Magic City Fronton is a whopping $272.  Now the casual observer might say “so what” but let’s put these figures into modern day “Jai-Alai perspective.”  Let’s compare the first 48-games (6-performances) of the Magic City Fronton, now in their 6^th year of pari-mutuel Jai-Alai wagering games, with the long-standing Dania Jai-Alai which opened 70-years ago.  Dania Jai-Alai recently operated a short meet from December 2022 through January 2023.

First 48-games Average Trifecta Handle:

• Dania Average Trifecta Handle = $2,708 per game
• Magic City Average Trifecta Handle = $1,831 per game

Dania Average Trifecta Handle (full meet Dec-Jan) = $3,405 per game

Magic City’s Sunday Trifecta handle of $2,687 in game 8 is less than a cheap steak dinner away from Dania’s Average Trifecta handle of $2,708 for their first 48-games.  Now I find that impressive!

First 48-games Average $1.00 Trifecta Payoffs:

• Dania Average = $221 per game
• Magic City Average = $272 per game

Magic City payoffs are trending 23% higher than Dania payoffs for the start of the meets.

Most Recent Full Meet Comparison on $1.00 Trifecta Payoffs:

• Dania (full meet Dec ’22 thru Jan ’23, 450-games) = $229 per game
• Magic City Fronton (2022, 904-games) = $229 per game

.  Note:  Both Magic City and Dania have the same 25% takeout rate for Trifecta pools.

Steve M (aka straymar)

This marks the first week of the 10-week contest period for the FREE SayHili Contests for Battle Court. The contest weeks run from Friday through Tuesday and are easy to enter.

Contest Prizes have been increased to a minimum of (5) pieces of Jai-Alai memorabilia.

Submit your entry NOW through Friday at 6:50-pm for the first week contest

Check out Contest Page for more info.

Be sure to check out the new article on Jeff ‘Laca” Conway’s PelotaPress site about Stu Neiman. The article was written by Juan Ignazio Zulaika. Here is the link to article.

Check out our new Contest Page under the “Battle Court and Sports Wagers” drop-down menu for more details on the easy steps to submit your weekly entries for neat contest prizes of Jai-Alai memorabilia! Deadline for entry submission each week is 6:50-pm EST on Friday evening. Submit your entry early if possible. Entries can be submitted as early as Wednesday each week for the FREE weekly contests which run from Friday through Tuesday.

Note 2/21 Contest Prize update: Winners will now receive at least (5) pieces of Jai-Alai memorabilia (instead of 3). Steve M took inventory for contest prizes and has increased the weekly prizes! There are a lot of nice items! Be sure to enter!

Check out our new Contest Page under the Battle Court drop-down menu for more details on this.

Magic City Fronton in Miami debuts its 6th Season of pari-mutuel games (called pelota games) on Monday, February 13^th at 1:30-pm.  According to Stu Neiman, there will be no changes to the Pelota format for 2023.  Thus, there will continue to be 8-games with the Spec 7 format (games to 7-points) and no changes to wagers being offered.

The 2023 pari-mutuel season does come with roster changes; (2) players have left the roster and there are (3) roster additions.  Players Diaz and RonRon have left the roster.  Diaz, who had a late-year injury in 2022, moved with his long-time girlfriend to Colorado while RonRon and his family moved back to California.  Note that Diaz has since recovered from his back injury.  Diaz exited Magic City in winning-style when he won his last game played at the Magic City Fronton on September 19^th where he and partner Douglas won a hotly-contested match against the favored Flores-Manu team in 3-sets with scores of 6-5, 1-6, 6-5. RonRon leaves a legacy of having the 3rd best Win % for Pelota singles games in 2023.  RonRon was also a member of the Rebote Renegades who won the Battle Court II Championship finals in November of 2022.  Adios Diaz & RonRon and we wish you the best in your future endeavors!

The three new Pelota roster additions are Jairo, Manny and Iriondo.  Jairo and cesta-maker, Manny, are not new to the Magic City Fronton as they have previously competed in Battle Court matches and will continue to compete in Battle Court.  Iriondo on the other hand is new to Jai-Alai and made his pro career debut just last week as a Charger at the first night of 2023 Battle Court matches.  Iriondo made US Jai-Alai history by being the first Jai-Alai player ever to make their professional debut in front of a national TV audience on ESPN3.  Iriondo is a US citizen born in New Haven, CT who had been living in Spain.  His father played professional Jai-Alai as a back-court player at both Milford and Miami under the name Retrolaza.

Robin who was injured last season will be out through May of this year (last played on 10/4/2022).  Robin has been undergoing some intensive rehab on his left knee in place of surgery.  Bradley who had been out due to injury last year restarted Battle Court matches in late 2022 and will be competing only in Battle Court matches for the first part of 2023.  Also, late breaking news is Inaki’s wrist fracture, side-lining him while he recovers.

Don’t miss out on the hot Pelota and Battle Court action in 2023. Be sure to open and/or fund that BetRivers sports betting account for Battle Court and explore the pari-mutuel wagering account options offered by watchandwager.com and mywinners.com.  If your state doesn’t allow Jai-Alai pari-mutuel wagers at this time, it’s NOT game-over.  Be sure to partner with a good friend or family member who resides in a state where Jai-Alai wagers are allowed.  Check with customer service to see if they allow wagers from your state as the lists change periodically.  Here are the contact numbers:

Watch & Wager:  (888) 204-9150, on-line wagers only

MyWinners:  (800) 468-2260, on-line and/or phone wager options, Note:  Connecticut residents’ only option is MyWinners.

Contests:  No more weekly fantasy Jai-Alai contests for Battle Court sponsored by Magic City, however,  all is not lost.  SayHiLi is working out details for a FREE Battle Court contest to start in early March (details TBD).  Prizes will be non-monetary but will include some really nice Jai-Alai memorabilia items.  Stay tuned for more on this and be sure to support ALL versions of Jai-Alai to help with “Keepin’ the Jai-Alive!”

Steve M

Here is a link to the recent press release with lots of info on the new Battle Court Spring 2023 Season:

PRESS RELEASE

Retolaza was born in 1964 and debuted professionally in 1984 at Durango Spain. He was Rookie of the Year at Miami Jai Alai (1986) and played there until the players’ strike in 1988, when he returned to Spain for the next 8 years, competing in tournaments partnering with the likes of Bolivar, Alberdi, Cachin, Remen and other top talent.  He returned to the US in 1995 where he was a top backcourter at Milford until his retirement in 2000.  Info provided by Mark Kaminsky, historian of the National Jai-Alai Association.

Here is some season record history for Retrolaza (#54) from Milford programs.  The info is mostly mid-season stats.  Milford had year-round games from 1996 to 2001 since Bridgeport closed in 1995.

———-

Note that 1997 GP for other players ranged from 127-260 so this program info was early in the meet.  The 1998 stats provided show GP of 105 for Retrolaza while other players had GP ranging from 382-829 at the time, so assuming he started later in the meet or was dealing with an injury.  The 2000 stats show 455 GP while some players had up to 830 GP at that point; this was Retrolaza’s retirement year.

The Milford season record history for Retrolaza was provided from programs owned by Alecs Smith, another well-known Jai-Alai historian and Jai-Alai artist.  Alecs designed an Orlando Jai-Alai program cover for their Citrus Tournament one year and also created the logo for the SayHiLi site.  He is also a pretty darn good amateur player according to several reliable sources.

Retrolaza’s son, Iriondo (#45), takes to the short-court for his Magic City professional career debut representing the newly branded Miami Lifestyle Chargers against the Rebote Renegades on Friday night Battle Court this week at 7-pm.  Iriondo is partnered with Zulaika in the 2^nd match of the night versus the Renegade’s team of Goixerri-Ben.  The 4^th match of the night features Iriondo vs Ben in a singles match. 

SayHiLi wishes Iriondo the best in his professional debut.  Iriondo will also be playing in the Magic City Pelota games which start on Monday, February 13^th at 1:30-pm EST.

Magic City Fronton in Miami debuts its 6^th Season of professional Jai-Alai in 10-days starting with Battle Court matches on Friday, February 3^rd at 7-pm followed by the traditional Pelota games (aka pari-mutuel games) which begin on Monday, February 13^th at 1:30-pm.  Battle Court matches are the relatively new sports-betting style of head-to-head matches formatted like a tennis match where there are 3-sets to a match and the first team/player to win 2-sets wins the match.  There are only two players or doubles team in a match and sets are single points to 6-points, so they are essentially a series of (3) mini-partidos to 6-points.  Friday night Battle Court matches will again allow Live attendance with doors opening at 6:30-pm.  Friday night the Chula Chargers take on the Rebote Renegades!  Don’t miss out!  If you can’t see it in person, CLICK HERE for the ways to watch.

The 2023 season comes with roster changes; two players have left the roster and there are six new additions, five from Dania plus a new player.  Players Diaz and RonRon have left the roster.  Diaz, who had suffered a back injury, has moved with his long-time girlfriend to Colorado and RonRon has moved with his family back to California.  Note that Diaz has since recovered from his back injury.  Diaz exited Magic City in winning-style when he won his last game played at Magic City on the 9/19/2022 H2H match 6 where he and partner Douglas won a hotly-contested match against the favored Flores-Manu team in 3-sets with scores of 6-5, 1-6, 6-5. RonRon leaves a legacy of having the 3^rd best Win % for Pelota singles games in 2023.  RonRon was also a member of the Rebote Renegades who won the Battle Court II Championship finals in November of 2022.  Adios Diaz & RonRon and we wish you the best in your future endeavors!

Five new players to the Magic City Fronton are from Dania Jai-Alai.  They are all currently playing at the 2-month Dania Beach Invitational Tournament which concludes on Sunday, January 29^th.  The new players from Dania are front-court players Goenaga, Iturbide and Zulaika and back-court players Arta and Urbieta.  All of the players transitioning from Dania will be playing only in the Battle Court matches, however Arta and Urbieta will also be judging for the Pelota games.  Note that Iturbide is in the final Championship partido match at Dania this Friday night after game 9.  Iturbide-Oyhenard (4^th seed) take on Urrutia-Mandiola (7^th seed) in a 21-point partido where the winners each take home $2,500 and second place is $1,500 each.  Zulaika is competing in a 15-point partido match for 3^rd place on Thursday night where the winning doubles team members each take home $1,000.   See the complete brackets for this tourney on the SayHiLi home page.  Good luck to both Iturbide and Zulaika!  Don’t forget there is WIN betting on these partido matches.

The remaining new addition to the roster is Iriondo from Spain, who is a US citizen born in New Haven, CT.  Iriondo has never played professional Jai-Alai, but his father played pro-Jai-Alai in Connecticut and at the Miami fronton until 1988 under the name Retrolaza (note – see end of article for some Retrolaza history).  Magic City had been contacted by Iriondo who had expressed interest in playing at the Magic City Fronton.  He had enjoyed watching the short-court Magic City Jai-Alai games on the YouTube channel.  Magic City Fronton player’s manager, Juan Arrasate (known as JR), scouted him out on his recent trip to Spain where Iriondo impressed him when they took to the court.  Iriondo trained on a big court and he also studied engineering at a university in Spain. Stu Neiman said “he is a really really nice young man and has nice form on both sides.” SayHiLi’s Steve M and stat chart-man Joel A (Mo Crank in the chat rooms) welcome all of the new additions to the Magic City 2023 roster and wish them the best!

Previous Battle Court player and cesta-maker Manny along with Jairo will be competing in both Pelota and Battle Court matches this year. Jairo, another former Dania professional, joined the Magic City Battle Court roster in 2022.  This should make for even more challenging late singles games 6 & 8 for Magic City Pelota matches, the likes of which haven’t been seen in this century at any US Jai-Alai fronton.

The 2022 Magic City Singles Championship was won by Goixerri with 58 wins (26%) and Douglas was second with 44-wins (19.6%).  RonRon had the 3^rd best percentage wins with 18.5 followed by Carballo with 17.6.  Both Goixerri and Douglas played exclusively in the late singles games 6 & 8, featuring the top singles players.  The roster additions of Manny and Jairo to these games should make for some added spectacular action in the Spec-7 format.  Stu Neiman is pushing for the addition of a separate Early Games Singles Championship for the 2023 Pelota season.  Sounds like a great idea Stu!

Robin who was injured last season will still be out through May of this year.  Robin has been undergoing some intensive rehab on his left knee in place of surgery.  Robin last played on 10/4/2022.  Bradley who had been out due to injury last year restarted Battle Court matches on 10/25/2022.  He will be competing only in Battle Court matches for the first part of this year.

Stu Neiman said there will be no changes to the Pelota format for 2023.  Practice sessions have been on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, however since this is the 6^th year for Magic City, practice sessions have been reduced however some Battle Court squads have taken to the short-court to practice for the upcoming Battle Court matches.  Battle Court has expanded from (4) squads to (5) for 2023.  The new squad is named the Dejada Devils.  Be sure to check out the SayHiLi home page for the Battle Court squad team members and the doubles teams for each squad for Spring Battle Court in 2023.  Squad members were finalized at the recent January 9 Battle Court Draft at the Magic City Fronton.

SayHiLi’s Steve M did some research on Iriondo’s father with his limited collection of Jai-Alai programs.  He didn’t have any with history on Retrolaza at Connecticut frontons, but did find a Miami Jai-Alai program from 3/12/1987.  SayHiLi is sure that pelotapress.com site owner Jeff “Laca” Conway can find some more history on Retrolaza competing in Connecticut.  Here is program info Steve M found in the Miami program:

Retrolaza #33, Back-court, 6’ tall, 195 lbs, born 8/11/1964, Spanish Basque

Retrolaza showed a playing history of games 1,2,4,5 with an overall record (GP-W-P-S) of 149-25-21-30.  The % ITM of 0.510 and % Win of 0.168 are well above average.

Don’t miss out on the hot Pelota and Battle Court action in 2023. Be sure to open and/or fund that BetRivers sports betting account for Battle Court and explore the pari-mutuel wagering account options offered by watchandwager.com and mywinners.com.  If your state doesn’t allow Jai-Alai wagers at this time, be sure to partner with a good friend or family member who resides in a state where it’s allowed.  Be sure to check with customer service to see if they allow wagers from your state as the lists change periodically.  If we want to see continued pari-mutuel Jai-Alai  then be sure to help the cause by wagering on this product.  Here are the contact numbers:

Watch & Wager:  (888) 204-9150, on-line wagers only

MyWinners:  (800) 468-2260, on-line and phone wager options, Connecticut only option is MyWinners.

We have also found out from Andrew Blechman there won’t be any more weekly fantasy Jai-Alai contests for Battle Court.  SayHiLi is working on some contest options/ideas for Battle Court and maybe even for Pelota games too with non-monetary prizes of Jai-Alai items including some really nice memorabilia items.  Stay tuned for more on this and be sure to support both short-court and big court Jai-Alai to help with “Keepin’ the Jai-Alive!”

Steve M

Benny Bueno gave his picks for the first round of the Dania Partido Tournament which starts Thursday night, January 5 at the Dania fronton after the 9^th pari-mutuel singles game.  Anyone can hear the complete discussion on the tourney picks scoop by going to Dania’s YouTube Channel for the Sunday, January 1^st games for the between games banter between Benny and announcer Dave LaMont.  Note that Benny claims he’s really bad at picking winners and has given up on making predictions, however, here’s the summary of Benny’s first round partido picks and why.

Match 1, Thursday January 5, #1 Zulaika-Manci vs #8 Etcheberry-Portet

Benny’s Pick:  Zulaika-Manci

Why:  Zulaika is positive, optimistic and has kill-shots, when Jai-Alai takes the next step that Zulaika will be part of the solution

Match 2: Friday January 6, #4 Iturbide-Oyhenard vs #5 Aaron-Laborde

Benny’s Pick:  Iturbide-Oyhenard

Why:  Iturbide is very positive , good on the court and aggressive, Benny doesn’t see Aaron as an aggressive kill-shot guy, players from Aaron’s home town are “volley players”

Match 3:  Thursday January 12, #3 Laduche-Atain II vs #6 Benetrix-Urbieta

Benny’s Pick:  Laduche-Atain II

Why:  Laduche is the hottest of the 4-players and Attain II is a perfect partido partner, says that Benetrix is a bit outmatched by Laduche

Match 4:  Friday January 13, #2 Bixente-Bailo vs #7 Urrutia-Mandiola

Benny’s Pick:  Bixente-Bailo

Why:  Bailo gives it everything he has, also notes that Bixente is a quiet guy off and on the court (guessing this means he won’t let his emotions get the best of him)

SayHiLi Team Assessments

Here are the team records by post position for the (8) partido tourney teams from the start of the meet (Dec 1) through January 1.

Now, here’s the money chart, showing the Post-Position Adjusted (PPA) Weighted Factor for each of the doubles teams.  This special SayHiLi Player/Team assessment tool evaluated the limited team statistical data for how teams should have done based on the posts they had compared to how they actually performed from those posts and also has a weighting for WPS close to the 5-3-1, but not exactly, however it’s an optimized weighting.  You need a special SayHiLi security clearance for any more info on the SayHiLi PPA method is achieved, and those are harder to get than government security clearances….haha.

So, based on the above actual team data Team PPA Factors (last column), here are the SayHiLi predictions:

Match 1:  Seed 1 vs 8, Zulaika-Manci the clear advantage 24.2 to 11.6

Match 2:  Seed 4 vs 5, Iturbide-Oyenhard the clear advantage 23.1 to 15.4

Match 3:  Seed 3 vs 6, Laduche-Atain II the clear advantage 13.8 to 3.4

Match 4:  Seed 2 vs 7, Bixente-Bailo the clear advantage 25.9 to 13.7

Note these selections are the top-seeded selections in each match as were Benny Bueno’s picks for these four first-round partido matches.  Note however, with only 1-month of team data available, there are some issues here with limited data of only 6-13 team pairings.  Low data can result in flawed team assessments and one would wonder about the Benetrix-Urbieta team rating of 3.4, which appears suspect.

There is another SayHiLi team evaluation technique which allows the use of more data.  This involves the Individual Doubles PPA Weighted Method for the Front Court and Back Court player and to average their individual assessments to get an Estimated Team Rating (ETR).  SayHiLi will perform this evaluation (2) different ways, for ALL performances of doubles data and for just the Last 12-performances of doubles data.

Using only the last 12-performances of data for the team estimated assessment makes the Benetriz-Urbieta team a slight favorite over Laduche-Atain II so this could be a very interesting matchup.  This is mostly due to the much improved play by Benetrix in the last 12-performances compared to his season average.  Some notes of interest on Benetrix are two-fold.  Benny mentioned in his between-game sessions on Dania’s YouTube Channel that Benetrix wanted really badly to play at Dania but the slots were filled.  Johan was scheduled to play and backed-out from playing the Dania Invitational as he wanted to play a tourney in Guernica.  Only minutes later from hanging up with the call from Johan, Benetrix called Benny to ask once more about openings and thus secured his position on the roster.  Also, the improved play by Benetrix in the second half of the meet is probably most likely due to breaking his cesta very early in the meet.  Benny has given more details on the Benetrix cesta story on the YouTube banter with the announcers.  Be sure you don’t miss out on the entertaining YouTube scoop from Benny twice a week (Fridays and Sundays)!

So in conclusion, the FINAL SELECTIONS by SayHiLI’s Steve M are the top-seeded teams for Matches 1, 2 and 4, however Steve is taking the Benetrix-Urbieta team in Match 3 on Thursday, January 12.

Be sure to support both short-court and long-court Jai-Alai options in the USA to help keep this great sport alive and have a Happy New Year!  Be sure to catch Magic City’s Battle Court Draft which is slated for Monday, January 9^th (check jaialaiworld.com for latest Battle Court updates along with SayHiLi.com).

Steve M.

Starting tonight, Dania fans get even more Jai-Alai as game 9 singles has been changed from a spec 7 singles to a spec 9 singles with Superfecta wagering. So, there are now (3) Superfectas on the Dania wagering menu starting Friday night (12/16); games 4, 7 and 9.

Fan favorite Zulaika has post-1 in tonight’s game 9 singles so this should be interesting. Zulaika should be heavily bet in this game!

Superfecta’s are a 10-cent base wager, the norm for the pari-mutuel industry these days. Dania Superfecta bettors do need to be aware of the change in superfecta wagering from previous Dania meets of recent years. Although the base wager is 10-cents, the total superfecta wager must now be a $1.00 minimum to be accepted. This means one can no longer do a 10-cent straight wager 5-3-1-2 for a mere 10-cents. Now you would need to pair-up your desired super wager with other combos or increase the base wager amount so the ticket costs $1.00 or more (or both). Thus, for example, one could play a 10-cent super 5-3-12-all for $1.00 total or play a 20-cent super 5-3-1-all for $1.00 total. One could simply play a $1.00 base wager on a straight 5-3-1-2, however, that would be a significant impact on the payoff with (10) 10-cent tickets on that 5-3-1-2, making long-term profitability a lot less likely. Why not get more bang for your buck and cover more combinations, right?

Good Luck Superfecta Lovers and Thanks Dania Fronton!!

Week 2 of the Dania 2022/2023 Dec-Jan Meet/Invitational Tourney ended on Sunday, Dec.11 and here is a summary of some data from the popular trifecta and superfecta pari-mutuel wagering options for the first 99-games at Dania.

• Average $1.00 Trifecta Payoff:  $218.80
• Average Trifecta Pool (before takeout):  $2947
• Average $0.10 Superfecta Payoff:  $109.55
• Average Superfecta Pool (before takeout):  $1371

For comparison purposes, here are Magic City averages on above for all of 2022 (904-games).  Note that Magic City does not have a superfecta on their Pelota (aka pari-mutuel) wagering menu.

• Average $1.00 Trifecta Payoff:  $228.40
• Average Trifecta Pool (before takeout):   $1992

Now, some good news on the Dania front for fans of the sport, the wagering appears to be on the rise as evidenced by some nice betting pools from the weekend of the 2^nd week.  Also shown are largest payoffs for both trifecta and superfecta for the meet-to-date.

• Largest Trifecta Pools:  $4048 and $4222, both on Fri Eve 12/9 games 4,5
• Largest Superfecta Pool:  $1963 on Fri Eve 12/9 game 7
• Largest $1.00 Trifecta Payoff:  $1067.20 for a 2-8-7 on Sat Eve 12/10 game 8
• Largest $0.10 Superfecta Payoff:  $455.25 for 2-6-8-7 on Fri Eve 12/9 game 4

YOUR SUPPORT IS NEEDED IF WE WANT TO SEE MORE JAI-ALAI in the USA!!  If you can’t go to the games and watch them live AND wager on these games or visit the OTB or other venue that has Jai-Alai on their simulcast menu, be sure to open up that account with watchandwager.com or mywinners.com.  IF you can’t bet on Jai-Alai in your state, then TEAM-UP with a friend or family member who resides in a “Jai-Friendly” state to get a wagering account opened-up to do your part to “Help Keep the Jai-Alive” in the USA.  

Also, and most importantly, PLEASE be sure to support BOTH Magic City short-court products and the Dania long-court product.  Magic City has two short-court products (there is Pelota “aka pari-mutuel” and the Battle Court sports betting matches through BetRivers.com) and Dania offers the long-court pari-mutuel product, but who knows, if Dania gets enough support from wagering fans, sports betting matches could become a reality in the future?  This is no time to be picky and choosy on which version of Jai-Alai to support in the USA!  Picky and choosy is only for moms who want Jiff for their kids, lol.  This is a time to be thankful for the TWO Jai-Alai Frontons in the USA and to act quickly if we want to keep the World’s Fastest and Most Fascinating Sport around for years to come!!

Help Keep the Jai-Alive and Happy Holidays!

Steve M, SayHiLi.com

With Dania Beach Jai Alai starting up for 2 months on Thursday, December 1, 2022, I am beginning to track data for the Daily Double, Pick 3 and Superfecta games. With limited data so far in the first 10 sessions, I still wanted to get some data out sooner rather than later. Check back next week for more data and insights as the data set expands.

NEW: Check the new SayHiLi webpage devoted to the latest updates for this info below – CLICK HERE

Michael Diaz (player #30 Diaz) and Ronald Madrigal (player #12 RonRon) will not be returning to play at the Magic City Fronton in Miami, Florida for the 2023 season.

According to Stu Neiman, “Diaz experienced lower back issues going into October which necessitated a long scratch and possible surgery.  He told us a 5-year run was great, he was appreciative of the experience and would not accept a contract for 2023.  As of this time he is looking forward to relocating to Colorado with his long-term girlfriend and year-old American Akita.”

Ronald is retiring from action at the Magic City Fronton and will be moving back to California with his family.  Both players will be missed by Magic City Jai-Alai fans and players/staff.  SayHiLi wishes the best for them in the future and they will be missed!

Stay tuned to SayHiLi.com for future updates and some new roster additions for 2023 which will be released by Magic City Fronton in 2023.  Jai-Alai returns in early February with Battle Court starting on Friday, February 3^rd with Pelota games soon to follow.  Battle Court matches with sports betting opportunities will be on Friday night and Monday/Tuesday late afternoon and the traditional Pelota games with pari-mutuel wagering will be Sunday through Tuesday in the early afternoon.

Happy Holidays to ALL!

Steve M

SayHiLi has added a new page to the website with the Battle Court 2022 II Championship Finals results. It’s located under “Other Links.”

Click Here for the BC 2022 II Finals Results

After Monday’s solid performance by the Warriors to grab second place, the Renegades trailed them by 6.50 game points. The Renegades owned the tie-break over the Warriors with a set score of 3-1, and needed a minimum of 6.50 points to secure a second place finish – and they did just that; handing the Cyclones just their second game day loss of the season 6.50-1.00. The Cyclones only other loss was at the hands of the Warriors in a close match on 10/25 (3.00-4.50).

The evening started with Goixerri taking Manu (6-5, 6-3) in a well-played match followed by the undefeated doubles team of Correa/Aratz beating William/Manny (6-5, 6-1). The third match featured Ben and Jeden with Ben playing some of the best Jai Alai that he has played to earn the victory (6-1, 6-1). After a rough first set against RonRon, Carballo came back to win in three sets (1-6, 6-4, 6-4) to earn the Cyclones their only point of the evening. Correa/Aratz remained undefeated with a win over Jeden/Manu (6-4, 6-2) while Goixerri/RonRon finished the thrilling evening with a win over Ikeda/Manny (6-1, 6-3).

The Championship for the Fall Battle Court Season is set for Friday, November 18 at 7pm (EST) at the Magic City Fronton.

The winning squad will earn $4,000 per player with the second place squad earning $1,000 per player.

If you are able to attend, this will be a great display of Jai Alai for sure. If you cannot make it to the Fronton in person, you can watch the action at watchjaialai.com, laligasportstv.com, streamstak.com/jaialaitv (Triple B Media), FTF Sports Network, ESPN3, BetRivers youtube channel or download the free Jai Alai Channel app.

The Warriors put the hammer down in their bid for second place by beating the Chargers 6.5-1.0 on Monday evening. The Warriors won 10 of 13 sets in Monday’s match-ups.

The Chargers earned 1.00 point in the opening match with Spinner’s win over Bueno in straight sets (6-5, 6-4). While the Warriors took the last five matches.

For the Warriors; Inaki beat Douglas (6-3, 6-1), Nicolas/Bradley beat Jairo/Roque (6-3, 6-3), Julen earned a 3 set win over Benny (6-2, 2-6, 6-4), Inaki/Kubala beat Jairo/Spinner (6-4, 6-3) and Nicolas/Bradley took Flores/Douglas (6-5, 6-3) in the last match.

The only way the Renegades can win second place is if they earn a 7.50 point sweep over the Cyclones or by only losing one singles match to earn 6.50 points in which they would tie the Warriors in points; but would win the head to head tie-break. Tuesday’s matches should be exciting to say the least.

It is interesting to note that the Cyclones have a better set win percentage over the Renegades (57.4%) than the Warriors (52.8%), but have earned more game points over the Warriors (18.00) than the Renegades (14.50). See the tables below for more details.

Remaining schedule:

• November 15: Renegades vs Cyclones
• November 18: Battle Court Championship Finale (top two teams face-off)

Live viewing is Friday evenings at 7:00pm at the Magic City Fronton with doors opening at 6:30pm. Admission is free and there are give-a-ways and promotions for those in attendance.

You can watch the action on Fridays at 7pm and Mondays/Tuesdays at 5pm (EST) at watchjaialai.com, laligasportstv.com, streamstak.com/jaialaitv (Triple B Media), FTF Sports Network, ESPN3, BetRivers youtube channel or download the free Jai Alai Channel app.

What a battle for second place Friday evening’s match was. Trailing the Warriors by 1.50 game points in the standings, the Renegades beat the Warriors 4.50-3.00 to tie for second place. With each of the four Battle Court squads having only one match left, the Chargers have secured first place for the second time in Battle Court history.

The Renegades scored 4.50 points by winning all three singles matches with Aratz over Nicolas (6-5, 0-6, 6-5), CRB defeating Bradley (6-1, 1-6, 6-3) and Ben beating Kubala (6-5, 6-4). The Renegades picked up 1.50 points with a doubles win by Correa/Aratz coming back to defeat Bueno/Julen (4-6, 6-0, 6-2).

The Warriors bright spot was with Inaki teaming with Kubala to defeat Goixerri/RonRon (6-2, 5-6, 6-4) and later, Inaki teaming with Nicolas to hand Goixerri/RonRon their second doubles loss of the evening (6-0, 6-2).

Monday’s and Tuesday’s matches will be just as exciting as the second place teams will try to break the tie with the Warriors playing the Chargers on Monday and the Renegades taking on the Cyclones on Tuesday.

The Warriors look to have the advantage as they have scored 17.00 points while only losing 5.50 points to the Chargers this season. They have also won 30 out of 42 sets (71.4%) against the Chargers.

The Renegades will have a tougher time as they have scored 8.00 points will losing 14.50 points to the Cyclones this season. They have won 20 out of 47 sets (42.6%) against the Cyclones.

Remaining schedule:

• November 14: Chargers vs Warriors
• November 15: Renegades vs Cyclones
• November 18: Battle Court Championship Finale (top two teams face-off)

Live viewing is Friday evenings at 7:00pm at the Magic City Fronton with doors opening at 6:30pm. Admission is free and there are give-a-ways and promotions for those in attendance.

You can watch the action on Fridays at 7pm and Mondays/Tuesdays at 5pm (EST) at watchjaialai.com, laligasportstv.com, streamstak.com/jaialaitv (Triple B Media), FTF Sports Network, ESPN3, BetRivers youtube channel or download the free Jai Alai Channel app.

The first place Cyclones took a 4.00-3.50 game day victory over the Chargers on Tuesday evening.

Earning 3.50 points for the Chargers, they had doubles win from Jairo/Roque over Williams/Manny (6-4, 6-2) and singles wins with Spinner beating Ikeda (4-6, 6-2, 6-2) and Benny coming back against Carballo (3-6, 6-1, 6-4).

Ikeda took the first set, but Spinner gained momentum and never let up for an impressive win. Likewise, Carballo had great control and excellent play to win the first set (6-3), but Benny battled back (6-1, 6-4) in the second and third sets for the win. Benny ended the match with a powerful low running chula.

The Cyclones earned 4.00 points with a singles win by Manu over Douglas (6-4, 6-5) that was an action filled, back and forth battle. Williams/Manny defeated Flores/Douglas (6-5, 6-5) and Jeden/Manu finished out the day by coming back to earn the win against Jairo/Roque (1-6, 6-4, 6-2).

The Cyclones (52.00) still have a solid grip on first place with one game day remaining for them. Friday’s match features a battle for second place with the second place Warriors (40.00) against the third place Renegades (38.50).

Friday’s matches will feature:

• Inaki/Kubala vs Goixerri/RonRon
• Nicolas vs Aratz
• Bradley vs CRB
• Kubala vs Ben
• Inaki/Nicolas vs Goixerri/RonRon
• Bueno/Julen vs Correa/Aratz

Remaining schedule:

November 11: Warriors vs Renegades

November 14: Chargers vs Warriors

November 15: Renegades vs Cyclones

November 18: Battle Court Championship Finale (top two teams face-off)

Live viewing is Friday evenings at 7:00pm at the Magic City Fronton with doors opening at 6:30pm. Admission is free and there are give-a-ways and promotions for those in attendance.

You can watch the action on Fridays at 7pm and Mondays/Tuesdays at 5pm (EST) at watchjaialai.com, laligasportstv.com, streamstak.com/jaialaitv (Triple B Media), FTF Sports Network, ESPN3, BetRivers youtube channel or download the free Jai-Alai Channel app.

The Renegades beat the Chargers 6.5-1.0 on Monday to come within 1.5 points of the second place Warriors.

For the Chargers, Douglas beat Goixerri in three sets (5-6, 6-4, 6-4), which has to be one of the best matches we have seen. With unbelievable defense including back to back fall down rebotes and scoops, this match is a “Jai Alai reel” all its own.

Douglas was up 5-1 in the first set and Goixerri came back to take the set 6-5. Goixerri started the second set with a 2-0 lead only to have Douglas run 4 straight points to take the lead at 4-2. After that, it was back and forth with Douglas coming out on top 6-4. The third set was back and forth as well with no lead greater than 2 points. With Douglas up 5-3, Goixerri scored on a chula, cutting the lead to 5-4. Douglas made phenomenal back to back scoops from his knees to earn a 6-4 victory.

I highly recommend that you watch this amazing match (first link below) and Douglas’ scoops (second link).

https://youtu.be/M_PKFB4HKOg?t=1863 (match 2 Goixerri-Douglas)

https://youtu.be/M_PKFB4HKOg?t=3719 (final 2 points of set 3 – Goixerri chula and Douglas’ phenomenal ‘knee scoops’)

The Renegades earned wins from Correa/Aratz over Jairo/Roque (6-3, 6-5), RonRon over Benny (6-4, 2-6, 6-1), Ben over Roque (6-2, 6-4), Goixerri/RonRon over Jairo/Spinner (6-1, 6-5) and Correa/Aratz over Flores/Douglas (6-0, 6-5).

Each team has 2 game days left in the season with the Warriors and Renegades squaring off on Monday, November 14. While the Cyclones having a pretty good grip on first place, Monday’s games should be exciting in the close race for second place that only has 1.5 points of separation.

Remaining schedule:

• November 8: Chargers vs Cyclones
• November 11: Warriors vs Renegades
• November 14: Chargers vs Warriors
• November 15: Renegades vs Cyclones
• November 18: Battle Court Championship Finale (top two teams face-off)

Live viewing is Friday evenings at 7:00pm at the Magic City Fronton with doors opening at 6:30pm. Admission is free and there are give-a-ways and promotions for those in attendance.

You can watch the action on Fridays at 7pm and Mondays/Tuesdays at 5pm (EST) at watchjaialai.com, laligasportstv.com, streamstak.com/jaialaitv (Triple B Media), FTF Sports Network, ESPN3, BetRivers youtube channel or download the free Jai Alai Channel app.

The Cyclones take a commanding 8.0 point lead in the standings with a near sweep of the Warriors with a score of 6.0-1.5 on Friday evening (11/4/22). This looked to be one, if not the largest crowd in attendance this season at the Magic City Fronton.

The Cyclones earned wins from Ikeda over Bueno (6-4, 6-5), Manu over Inaki (6-3, 6-4), Carballo over Julen (3-6, 6-4, 6-1), Ikeda/Manny over Inaki/Kubala (6-5, 6-2) and Jeden/Manu over Nicolas/Bradley (6-3, 5-6, 6-5).

The Warriors win was earned by the doubles team of Nicolas/Bradley over Williams/Manny (6-5, 6-2).

Remaining schedule:

November 7: Renegades vs Chargers

November 8: Chargers vs Cyclones

November 11: Warriors vs Renegades

November 14: Chargers vs Warriors

November 15: Renegades vs Cyclones

November 18: Battle Court Championship Finals

Live viewing is Friday evenings at 7:00pm at the Magic City Fronton with doors opening at 6:30pm. Admission is free and there are give-a-ways and promotions for those in attendance.

You can watch the action on Fridays at 7pm and Mondays/Tuesdays at 5pm (EST) at watchjaialai.com, laligasportstv.com, streamstak.com/jaialaitv (Triple B Media), FTF Sports Network, ESPN3, BetRivers youtube channel or download the free Jai-Alai Channel app.

Battle Court Jai-Alai matches and Pelota game performances (aka pari-mutuel wagering events) are set for 2023 and here is the scoop per Stu Neiman on 02-November:

• Battle Court and Pelota from February through mid-December with a mid-season break
• August will be a break from Battle Court & Pelota for some well-deserved time off for players and staff.  August will also be dedicated to the two tournaments;  the 4^th annual USNJAC and the 2^nd annual WSC (World Super Court).
• Action will resume in September and has been extended to mid-December for 2023, which is about a month longer than Magic City schedules we’ve seen in the past.
• There will be two Battle Court drafts, one in January and another for the fall Battle Court season.  January is an off-month, however it will be a practice month for players.
• When action resumes in February the Battle Court schedule will be the same as the current schedule;  Friday 7-pm EST and Mon/Tue 5-pm.  The Pelota games will be Sunday through Tuesday at 1:30-pm.

The roster will be expanded and the Magic City Fronton management has been flirting with the idea of adding a 5^th Battle Court squad.  No details have been released on the roster expansion and SayHiLi does not expect to hear about the final roster additions until January.  Magic City Battle Court matches are alive and well and even expanded to a much larger viewing audience with the ESPN3 live coverage which was added this fall.

Here are a few notes on the current roster:

• Bradley has been back in action and playing in Battle Court matches.  He is not expected to play in the Pelota games the rest of this month.
• Robin has been out with a knee injury and won’t be playing the rest of the year.  He last played on October 4 and will undergo knee surgery in December.  SayHiLi staff wishes him the best for that and a speedy recovery!
• Diaz has been out with a back injury and will be out the rest of this month.  He has been co-announcing with Stu and Andrew during Battle Court matches and providing some interesting tid-bits and banter from the perspective of a Magic City short-court player.

The 2022 Magic City end dates are as follows:

• Battle Court Championship is Friday, Nov. 18
• Pelota games final performance is Wednesday, Nov. 23

Don’t forget the Jai-5 and Mighty Ocho jackpots will be forced-out November 23^rd.  Currently the Jai-5 is $5,822.80 for the Monday, November 7^th performance.  Should this jackpot make it through another 8-performances without a single winning ticket it will be a whopper for the closing day force-out.   Also, the Mighty Ocho, a $1.oo Pick 8 Jackpot wager will pay-out a minimum of $5,000 on the force-out day to those ticket holders with the most winners correctly selected.  The Mighty Ocho has been hit for 8 of 8 correct winners twice since this challenging wager began in May of 2020.

Through 9 matches in the Battle Court 2022 II Season, the Cyclones have led wire-to-wire. The Warriors have maintained 2^nd Place since their second match with the Warriors maintaining 3^rd Place. With 3 matches left for each team, the Cyclones do not have 1^st place locked yet, but are close. The Warriors will look to take 1^st, but have a pretty good hold on 2^nd Renegades. The Championship will be played on Friday, November 18, 2022 at the Magic City Fronton.

Last week saw some great action and the return of Bradley who has been out due to an injury in April. Bradley took a 3 set match from Roque and still had his amazing power.

Remaining schedule:

• November 4: Cyclones vs Warriors
• November 7: Renegades vs Chargers
• November 8: Chargers vs Cyclones
• November 11: Warriors vs Renegades
• November 14: Chargers vs Warriors
• November 15: Renegades vs Cyclones

Live viewing is Friday evenings at 7:00pm at the Magic City Fronton with doors opening at 6:30pm. Admission is free and there are give-a-ways and promotions for those in attendance.

You can watch the action on Fridays at 7pm and Mondays/Tuesdays at 5pm (EST) at watchjaialai.com, laligasportstv.com, streamstak.com/jaialaitv (Triple B Media), FTF Sports Network, ESPN3, BetRivers youtube channel or download the free Jai Alai Channel app.

Go to the right side sidebar on this homepage and scroll down for the match scores and results for World Super Court.

The brackets are set for the Finals of the very first $50,000 World Super Court Tourney which concludes at Magic City on October 6^th!  This is a short-court doubles tourney featuring many of the current top professional Jai-Alai players in the world.  All teams had to qualify at one of the four qualifying events to get their shot at the finals field of 8-teams by finishing first or second in a qualifier event.

Erik-Manu were slated to compete, however, a late scratch of Erik has meant a substitution, initially planned to be Carballo.  Carballo had to scratch from the tourney today due to a bicep issue and RonRon is filling the slot and partnering with Manu (aka Ladutxe when at Dania).  The Erik scratch was initially rumored to be a retirement of Erik and moving to Spain where his wife is from (personal reasons), however recent posts on a Jai-Alai chat board indicate Erik wanted special treatment not offered to other participants from outside Magic City…..Erik does not have a home court any more and must certainly be intelligent enough to understand he doesn’t get to make all the rules, or any of them to be realistic. Too much drama being directed away from the 1st ever WSC on that topic unfortunately and Erik is “attempting” damage control (LOL good grief)………moving on, read more about this fantastic WSC event below.

The tourney kicks off at Magic City at noon EST on Thursday with first round matches and semi-finals which follow and then the finals match is scheduled for 5-pm EST Thursday.  The rules are simple and are the same as the Magic City Battle Court matches.  Prize money is a whopping $25,000 for first and $12,000 for second.

Here are the teams on the left-side of the bracket:

• Goixerri-Aratz VS Ikeda-Manny
• Jairo-Nicolas VS Johan-Gorka

Here are the teams on the right-side of the bracket:

• RonRon-Manu VS Douglas-Benny
• Arbe-Lekue VS Inaki-Julen

If you are unable to attend the LIVE matches at Magic City, be sure to watch them at watchjaialai.com.  They can also be viewed on Triple-B Media, FTF (For the Fans), and LaLigaSports.

SayHiLi resident handicapper, Steve M, predicts the finals match will be between the brothers teams of Goixerri-Aratz and Inaki-Julen. Goixerri and Aratz have been playing great lately and Inaki has been playing some awesome Jai-Alai the last several months! This first World Super Court finals event will be an incredible display of doubles match talent that hasn’t been seen in years at Jai-Alai! Don’t miss out on this first historical WSC event! Personally, I’m rooting for the brother team of Douglas-Benny of course!

After the exciting 2022 USNJAC, H2H play resumed on Sunday, August 28. Beginning on September 5, H2H is being played on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays, with the Series B season ending Wednesday, September 21. Live viewing in the fronton will be on Friday evenings when the Battle Court Season II begins on September 23.

Doubles – Ikeda-Aratz are still in first place with an impressive record of 8-0 with Robin-Benny in second at 5-1, followed by Inaki-Ben at 5-2.

There are 6 matches scheduled for Monday, September 12:

Game 1: Jeden-Nicolas (2-5) vs Joseph-Goixerri (2-5)

Game 2: Diaz-Douglas (1-6) vs Carballo-Roque (3-3)

Game 3: Flores-Manu (2-4) vs CRB-Spinner (1-6)

Game 4: Ikeda-Aratz (8-0) vs Williams-Manny (2-5)

Game 5: Carballo-Roque (3-3) vs Jairo-Kubala (4-2)

Game 6: Inaki-Ben (5-2) vs Robin-Benny (5-1)

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Singles Group I – Inaki is in first place with a record of 9-1, followed by Manu at 9-3. Douglas is in third with a record of 6-4.

There are 7 matches on Tuesday, September 13:

Game 1: Manny (3-8) vs Goixerri (5-5)

Game 2: Inaki (9-1) vs Douglas (5-5)

Game 3: Ikeda (1-10) vs (Manny (3-8)

Game 4: Manu (9-3) vs Nicolas (4-6)

Game 5: Benny (5-5) vs Inaki (9-1)

Game 6: Douglas (6-4) vs Goixerri (5-5)

Game 7: Nicolas (4-6) vs Benny (5-5)

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Singles Group II – RonRon and Jairo are tied for first with records of 11-1 with Julen and Aratz tied for third with records of 8-4.

There are 7 matches on Wednesday, September 14:

Game 1: Kubala (1-12) vs Ben (1-11)

Game 2: Jairo (11-1) vs Carballo (5-7)

Game 3: RonRon (11-1) vs Julen (8-4)

Game 4: Ben (1-11) vs Aratz (8-4)

Game 5: Carballo (5-7) vs Bueno (4-9)

Game 6: Jairo (11-1) vs RonRon (11-1)

Game 7: Julen (8-4) vs Aratz (8-4)

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You can watch the action at 5pm on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays at watchjaialai.com, laligasportstv.com, FTF Sports Network or download the free Jai Alai Channel app. Remember, live viewing in the Magic City fronton will be on Friday nights, beginning September 23 when Battle Court Season II starts. Be sure to catch the post-game show with Stu and Andrew for a recap of the action.

The 3^rd Annual USNJAC ended on Sunday, August 21^st, with (2) sets of Magic City Jai-Alai brothers making it a complete sweep of the entire $25,000 in Pro Tourney prize money.

Pro Singles Championship:

1^st Place to Inaki defeating Aratz 9-3 to win $7,500, 2^nd Place was $2,500

Pro Doubles Championship:

1^st Place to brothers Goixerri-Aratz over brothers Inaki-Julen 9-6 to win $10,000, 2^nd Place was $5,000

Here is the total Pro Tourney prize money breakdown for these 4-players, all on the Magic City Jai-Alai roster (Note:  Doubles Tourney prize money is split between players):

Inaki – $10,000

Aratz – $7,500

Goixerri – $5,000

Julen – $2,500

Last year Douglas won over Inaki (Dania’s Goitia at that time) in the Pro Singles Finals.  Inaki suffered an injury late in the match, breaking two bones in his hand.  After Dania closed in November 2021, Magic City extended an offer to Goitia to join the Magic City Jai-Alai roster and he was fully recovered and started playing at the start of the 10-week short-season on February 14^th this year.  Inaki has been the hottest singles player in late game feature Pelota games 6 & 8 (pari-mutuel games) over the last 2-months with his leading 22.0% win rate (50-11-6-10).  Inaki also had the highest % ITM for late game Pelota singles in the last 2-months, 54.0%, which was tied with Douglas for the highest.  He proved at the USNJAC Pro Tourney he is indeed one of the top US short-court players in the country, if not the best!

Dania’s top star Erik failed to advance to the Final Four in Pro Singles when he experienced the well-established “Curse of Julen,” losing 7-6.  Julen has a history of surprise upsets and key-point wins over top contenders at Magic City, including both Douglas and Goixerri.  Previously, Erik had won against RonRon 7-4 in Round 2 of the Pro Singles Tourney after given a bye in Round 1.

Other strong contenders; Douglas, Manu, Goixerri and Zulaika surprised many fans by none of them making the Pro Singles Finals.  Douglas, winner of last year’s Pro Singles Tourney had been playing exceptionally well lately, winning both games 6 & 8 of the Pelota games on August 14^th, which was the last day of games before the USNJAC.  Douglas had a bye in Round 1 and then lost to Aratz in the next round 7-6.  Manu had beaten Kubala and then Jairo both by near shut-out scores of 7-1, making it to the Final Four where he got knocked-out by Inaki 7-3.  Likewise, Goixerri, a very strong front-court player and current leader of the Magic City Singles Championship, got a bye in Round 1 and then handily beat the young, back-court player Benny, 7-0, but then failed against the experienced veteran Manu, where Manu won handily by a score of 7-4.  Zulaika won his Round 1 match 7-3 against Masters Singles finalist, Douglas I, the former pro player James Langhans who is father of brothers Matt & Ben Langhans (aka Magic City players Douglas & Benny).  Zulaika then met the Invincible Inaki in Round 2 who quickly sent him packing with a score of 7-1.

The Pro Doubles Championship Sunday turned out to be the (3) Magic City brother teams in the Final Four plus Dania’s best team of Erik-Ladutxe, the 2^nd Place winners in last year’s USNJAC Pro Doubles.  Note that Ladutxe now plays at Magic City Jai-Alai in 2022 under the name Manu, thus the team of Erik-Manu this year.  The brothers teams were; Douglas-Benny (last year’s Pro-Doubles winners), Inaki-Julen and Goixerri-Aratz.  Inaki-Julen out-scored Douglas-Benny 7-4 to reach the Finals and Goixerri-Aratz defeated Erik-Manu 7-3 for the other Finals spot.  Fans were treated to an incredible match ultimately won by Goixerri-Aratz by a score of 9-6.

Congratulations to the Magic City brother winners and a big thanks to Magic City Fronton and sponsors Betrivers & Cigar City Brewing Jai-Alai IPA for this great event which unites the best Jai-Alai players in the USA to display their mastery of the fascinating sport of Jai-Alai!  The announcing team of Stu and Andrew did a fantastic job covering the USNJAC and deserve major kudos along with Scott and Lindsay Savin and the rest of the support crew, including those responsible for the amazing video shots! The back glass wall allows for some close-up angles of Jai-Alai matches that have never been seen before! Be sure to watch the replays on watchjaialai.com if you missed the live Jai-Alai matches over the weekend (tip – click “Browse” on the website).

Magic City Pelota games return on Sunday, August 28^th at 1:30-pm with Jai-Alai H2H Doubles match-ups following at 5-pm.  Be sure to enter the weekly Fantasy Jai-Alai H2H contest and to be there for the live viewing of Pelota and H2H on Sunday the 28^th at the Magic City Fronton if you can make it!  Also, be sure to note the schedule change for Pelota and H2H games starting in September!  No more Sunday Jai-Alai as it’s tough to compete with the NFL.  There are 2022 calendar links on the Magic City website and on SayHiLi.

The 3rd Annual USNJAC starts Friday, here is the link to the press release from Sandra Rodriguez

LINK TO PRESS RELEASE

The 3^rd Annual USNJAC Tourney begins on Friday with the Masters Division on Day 1 (10-am EST start) with finals on Sunday.  The Pro Division won’t start until Saturday (11-am EST start) and concludes on Sunday (noon start on Sunday).

Magic City’s brother team of Douglas-Benny will be defending their 2021 Pro Doubles Championship title.  Last year they conquered the favored Erik-Ladutxe team 9-7 in the finals, taking home 1^st place prize money.  This year should be even better with Ladutxe, known as Manu on the Magic City roster, having grown more accustomed to the Magic City short-court since joining the Magic City roster at the start of 2022 and the young Benny having gained more experience.

The “amazing scoop champ” Douglas will be defending his 2021 Pro Singles Championship title.  Last year Douglas defeated Goitia by a score of 9-4 in the Pro Singles finale.  Goitia, now playing on the Magic City roster as Inaki, was injured in last year’s finale against Douglas.  Inaki has been playing some of his best Jai-Alai at Magic City in recent weeks and Douglas won both late singles games in Pelota action on Sunday, August 14^th, so both appear to be in top form for this weekend’s matches.  Goitia (Inaki) defeated Dania’s Erik last year in the semi-finals by a score of 7-4.  The competition should be even tougher for Erik this year should he accept the challenge.

A new serious contender for the USNJAC Pro Singles Championship title is Goixerri who joined the Magic City roster in early 2022.  Goixerri currently leads the Magic City 2022 Singles Championship with 35-singles wins, an impressive 23.8% wins overall, and has been a super-star in late singles games, however, in the last month he’s been in a slump, winning only two of 26-singles games.  Goixerri could easily be a huge threat in this tournament with some decent prize money at stake!  Currently, Carballo is 2^nd in the Magic City Pelota Singles Championship with 34-wins and Douglas is 3^rd with 29-wins.

SayHiLi will be covering and reporting on the Pro Division results this year, however, will not be covering the Masters Division (amateur).  We expect Jeff “Laca” Conway will be covering that angle with his site, PelotaPress.com, which is the leading site with info and support of US amateur Jai-Alai. SayHiLi will have staff on-site at Magic City Fronton Saturday and Sunday covering the Pro Singles and Doubles matches.

Contestants and match-ups for the 3^rd Annual USNJAC could be released by as soon as Wednesday evening, based on last year, and will be posted on SayHiLi ASAP.  This will be the first year where live attendance is allowed.  Doors open for fans a half-hour before the start time.

Watch the event on watchjaialai.com this year if you cannot attend (not on YouTube JAC like last two years).

Doubles – five exciting, action packed matches were played on Sunday, August 7.

Game 1: Flores-Manu handed Carballo-Roque a 2 set loss (6-4, 6-3).

Game 2: Joseph-Goixerri lost the first set to CRB-Spinner (5-6) but came back to win in 3 sets (5-6, 6-1, 6-1).

Game 3: Jeden-Nicolas won in 3 sets against Diaz-Douglas (6-3, 4-6, 6-3).

Game 4: Ikeda-Aratz improved to 4-0 to remain in 1^st Place with a hard fought 3 set match against Inaki-Ben (4-6, 6-5, 6-5).

Game 5: Robin-Ben improved to 3-0 with a 2 set win against Jairo-Kubala (6-3, 6-4) to remain in 2^nd Place.

There are 5 matches scheduled for Sunday, August 14:

Game 1: Joseph-Goixerri (1-2) vs Williams-Manny (1-2)

Game 2: Robin-Benny (3-0) vs Diaz-Douglas (1-3)

Game 3: Inaki-Ben (2-2) vs Flores-Manu (2-2)

Game 4: Ikeda-Aratz (4-0) vs Carballo-Roque (1-2)

Game 5: Jairo-Kubala (1-2) vs Jeden-Nicolas (2-2)

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Singles Group I – there were 7 matches on Monday, August 8.

Game 1: Inaki handled Benny in 3 sets with a victory (3-6, 6-5, 6-3).   

Game 2: Manu needed 3 sets for the with over Goixerri (5-6, 6-4, 6-2). Down 2-0 in the 3^rd set, Manu made a 6 point run for the win. Manu’s 7^th singles win.

Game 3: Nicolas played well in the 2 set win against Ikeda (6-2, 6-2).  

Game 4: Inaki earned his 2^nd win of the day with a straight set win against Douglas (6-4, 6-4). Inaki is in 2^nd Place with a 6-1 record.

Game 5: Manu continues to play well to earn his 2^nd win of the day with a straight set win against Benny (6-5, 6-4). Manu remains in 1^st Place with a record of 8-0.

Game 6: Goixerri earned his first win of the Series B season against Douglas (6-5, 6-4).

Game 7: Manny handed Ikeda a loss in 3 sets (5-6, 6-3, 6-2).

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Singles Group II – there were 7 matches on Tuesday, August 9.

Game 1: Julen earned a win against Ben in 2 sets (6-3, 6-5).

Game 2: Jairo won against Kubala (6-3, 6-3) to improve to 8-0 (see game 6 below).

Game 3: Aratz handed Bueno a 2 set loss (6-4, 6-4) to improve to a 6-2 record for 3^rd Place. 

Game 4: RonRon continues to play well with a 2 set win against Ben (6-4 6-4) to improve to a record of 8-1 to remain in 2^nd Place.

Game 5: Julen handled Carballo (6-5, 6-1).

Game 6: Jairo earned his 2^nd win of the day against Bueno (6-0, 6-0) to remain in 1^st Place with a record of 9-0. The (6-0, 6-0) score was the year’s first (6-0, 6-0) shut-out. Jairo won 24 of the 30 points he played for the day.

Game 7: Carballo needed 3 sets for the win against Kubala (6-1, 3-6, 6-4).

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USNJAC Aug 19-21, No H2H Aug 15-16

NOTE: There are no Singles I or II matches on Monday, August 15 or Tuesday, August 16 due to the 3^rd USNJAC Tournament at the Magic City Fronton that runs from Friday, August 19 through Sunday, August 21. H2H play will resume on Sunday, August 28.  Tournament starting times are 10-am, 11-am and noon EST, respectively for Friday through Sunday.  If you can’t visit Magic City to see the live tournament this year, be sure to watch on “The Jai-Alai Channel” on YouTube!

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Sunday’s H2H matches on August 14^th are open to the public which includes the “H2Hx20” promotion for those in attendance. All you have to do is pick the winner of each match and the number of sets (either 2 or 3). If you get both right, you win $20. This is open for all matches throughout the evening. Each match is individual, so if you pick incorrectly, you still have a chance in the remaining matches.

You can watch the H2H action at 5pm on Sundays, Mondays and Tuesdays at watchjaialai.com, laligasportstv.com, FTF Sports Network or download the free Jai-Alai Channel app. Remember, you can visit the fronton on Sundays to see the great action in person and a chance to win some money in the “H2Hx20” promotion. Be sure to catch the post-game show with Stu and Andrew for a recap of the action.

And don’t forget to watch “The King of Twitch” (aka El Barba) and Paulie at https://www.twitch.tv/watchjaialai for interactive livestreaming during the Jai-Alai H2H sports betting games at Magic City. Tune in to hear El Barba and Paulie entertain viewers with their insight and answer questions from the live chat. It is entertaining for sure.

The charts below show the standings in a couple of different formats.