Tokyo (HEROZ, inc.) – HEROZ, inc. (“HEROZ”) providing mobile applications with Artificial Intelligence (AI), will hold the qualifying round of the “22nd Meijin-qualifier” on “BackgammonAce”, one of the five biggest championship matches organized by Japanese Backgammon League (“JBL”).

Currently, top three in the world ranking, Backgammon Giants 2015, are dominated by Japanese players: Masayuki Mochizuki, Michihito Kageyama and Akiko Yazawa. This is a remarkable accomplishment popularizing backgammon in Japan.

BackgammonAce will continue to do its utmost to contribute to the further development of backgammon in the future.

■About the Qualifying Round of the 22nd Meijin-qualifier on BackgammonAce
・Players vie with each other based on their ranking in the online match event, “U.S. Ace2016”, on BackgammonAce during the qualifying round period.
・Player who wins 1st place in the qualifying round is eligible to participate in the 22nd Meijin-qualifier!
1st place: Participate in the 22nd Meijin-qualifier!
2nd place: Receive a backgammon book from “Happy Gammon Series” by Michihito Kageyama, a Japanese professional backgammon player!
※Shipment is only available to addresses in Japan.
Michihito Kageyama’s website：http://michihito.exblog.jp/
※Registration is required to take part in this event. It is available on BackgammonAce application.
・Time Period of the Qualifying Round
Registration Period: 1 April – 17:00 on 18 April, 2016 (subject to change)
Qualifying Round: 8:00 on 12 April – 8:00 on 20 April, 2016 (UTC)
(Depends on the time period of U.S. Ace2016)
・Registration Fee
Free

■About the 22nd Meijin-qualifier
・Meijin-qualifier is one of the five biggest championship matches organized by JBL.
After half a year to 1 year-long qualifying round, representatives of each district are chosen to take part in Meijin-qualifier, the championship match. The game is played to 25 points.
For more details, please contact JBL by member@backgammon.gr.jp
・Player who is eligible to take part in the Meijin-qualifier must be a member of JBL. To register as a member, please check JBL’s website.
URL: http://backgammon.gr.jp/?page_id=63#id3
A player lives outside Japan also can participate Meijin-sen grand final tournament as matches will be played on GridGammon until semi final. Semi final and final will be played in live but a part of your airfare and hotel cost will be covered by the tournament.
・Time Period of the 22nd Meijin-qualifier
May to August, 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.