Tokyo (HEROZ, inc.) – HEROZ, inc. (“HEROZ”) providing mobile applications with Artificial Intelligence (AI), is excited to announce the new featured main event of NY Metropolitan Backgammon (hosted in New York) titled “USA vs. The World” to be held on BackgammonAce. It is the first time in backgammon history that an offline competition to be conducted on an online application. Three Japanese players are selected for the world team: the world’s top ranked Masayuki Mochizuki (Mochy), world champion in 2014 Akiko Yazawa, and the world’s second ranked Michihito Kageyama (Michy). HEROZ will do its utmost to continue to back them up and will strive to further popularize backgammon around the world.

■About NY Metropolitan Backgammon
Held in New York, NY Metropolitan Backgammon is the first event in 2016 of the world’s largest annual backgammon event tour “American Backgammon Tour” conducted throughout the year. This time, the “must-see” new featured “USA vs. The World” event is drawing a great deal of attention among backgammon fans.

Players

*3 Japanese players of the World Team
-Masayuki Mochizuki: the world’s top ranked player, team captain of the World Team and the ambassador of HEROZ
-Akiko Yazawa: world champion in 2014
-Michihito Kageyama: world’s second ranked player

・About USA vs. The World on BackgammonAce
The 2 teams will play online on BackgammonAce. There will be a live commentary by a professional backgammon player and the game is intended to be delivered on Youtube at a future date.
-NY Metropolitan Backgammon: http://nybackgammon.com/
-American Backgammon Tour: http://chicagopoint.com/abt.html

■About BackgammonAce Wolrd Championship 2016 (BAC World Tour 2016)
An annual online match-up called “BAC World Tour 2016” to select the world champion will start on 1 January, 2016. BAC began in 2015, inviting competitive players from all around the world. Next year, BAC is expected to grow into an even larger event reaching more players worldwide.

Along with NY Metropolitan Backgammon, the first event, New York Ace2016, will be held between 5 January and 14 Jaunary, 2016. In the future, there will be more events expected to be held in coordination with offline competitions.
・BAC World Tour 2016: https://backgammon.heroz.jp/event/tours/schedule?year=2016

■About Backgammon
Backgammon is one of the oldest board games in the world expected to have over 300million players worldwide. It is gradually becoming popular in Japan nowadays as an intellectual, cool, and exciting game. Mochy and 2 other Japanese players have won the world championship up-to-date.

■ About BackgammonAce
BackgammonAce is a backgammon app that provides comfortable, speedy and free online match-ups with the use of world-class AI. With fantastic graphics and clean user interface, it allows players to play with anyone anywhere around the world. It is ranked No.1 among board games in UK and Germany and is popular in 150 and more countries.

*”HEROZ” and the HEROZ logo are registered trademarks of HEROZ, inc.
*All other company, product, and service names mentioned are trademarks or registered trademarks of the respective companies.

【About HEROZ, inc】
HEROZ is a company providing mobile apps using Artificial Intelligence (AI), which aims at offering services in the world with the concept “Surprising in mind”. It is one of the biggest service providers in Japan today, and will keep on offering services and collaboration activities actively to create a paradigm shift with the key word, AI　x mobile.

【Contact Information】

HEROZ, inc. public relations
Web： http://heroz.co.jp/
Email：press@heroz.co.jp
Please contact us to the above, if you have any inquiries about this release.