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PendingForaBending
Dec 30, 2005

How Bout Them Cowboys.
That sucks that there is such a lack of bowling around you guys. How un-american. :911:

Started bowling last night after about a month off and shot my lifetime high series. 257, 254, 236 for 747 total. 1st and 3rd game came down to about 10 pins for total too so I needed every bit of it for the points sweep last night.

Lets keep up the good bowling guys...for America. :)

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PendingForaBending
Dec 30, 2005

How Bout Them Cowboys.
It depends on what you already have. Its good to have a change of pace ball for sure. But like the above poster said, a good spare ball goes a long way and is generally dirt cheap.

PendingForaBending
Dec 30, 2005

How Bout Them Cowboys.
Shot 541 on Monday night coming off my career high series. Kinda figured that would happen. Funny thing is that my friend got a new ball and wanted to practice with it a bit after league. Shot 680 right after league. :downsgun:

PendingForaBending
Dec 30, 2005

How Bout Them Cowboys.

buffto posted:

Was given a couple of balls today. Got a Storm Prodigy and a Storm 2Fast. Shot 278-268-247 for a 793 series with the 2Fast. Not bad for the first series on the ball. The guy who gave them to me has pretty much the same span, so I just replaced the grips and thumb slug and I was good to go. That ball is going to be great when the lanes get toasted.

Edit: Hah, I just got around to watching the 2012 Masters finals. Chris Barnes is such a choke-artist bitch. Funny how that smarmy motherfuck went from :smug: to :smith: in 2 frames flat.

Good series man. I wish I would have seen the Barnes thing, that rules.

Ha, heres the whole thing. Skip to about 14:00.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkQhSjfTP6s

PendingForaBending
Dec 30, 2005

How Bout Them Cowboys.
653 tonight. Clean series and a points sweep for the team. Back in first place, too. I don't know whats up with the lanes where I bowl but it was like a soup out there, took a few games to dry up the oil to get a good line.

PendingForaBending
Dec 30, 2005

How Bout Them Cowboys.
Some pretty high scores this week it sounds like. It sounds like some of the leagues you guys bowl in are pretty cool. I'd like to try some pro pattern stuff cause it sounds hard as hell and I'm up for the challenge. The place I bowl at only offers it every once in a while in the summer, so if they do that again I'll have to try it. I got my average up to an all time high so I want to put it to the test.

PendingForaBending
Dec 30, 2005

How Bout Them Cowboys.
Shot 728 last night, 236-247-245. My grandfather gave me a bunch of his old bowling equipment and I've been throwing his Track Nuke for the past couple of weeks and have been killing it. I had to slow down a bit to get the right reaction out of it but it hits so well. My team has been killing in league and were taking a big lead in first place now.

PendingForaBending
Dec 30, 2005

How Bout Them Cowboys.

mattfl posted:

It's pretty amazing how old equipment still holds up and can be used. My dad has been using the same Wizard(I think? It's purple and I think Wizard is the name on the side) for probably close to 10 years now. Averages 200+ in league and has thrown a sanctioned 300 game with it. He wants to get a new ball this year, but is in no hurry. Not many other sports where you can use equipment designed 10 years ago and still be competitive.

Yeah, it was a really nice surprise to be able to get so much life out of it. I'd like to see how it holds up on a tougher oil pattern but on the house shot where I bowl its a perfect fit.

PendingForaBending
Dec 30, 2005

How Bout Them Cowboys.

Toaster Beef posted:

246-236-247 for a 729 tonight, took every game to keep our one-game first-place lead. Good night, overall.

Ha, you shot 1 pin higher than me in series this week. With 2 of the same scores and 1 that was 1 pin higher. :manning:

Edit: In my 245 game, I'm pretty sure I had XX9 to finish, so we almost had the exact same series game for game.

PendingForaBending fucked around with this message at 17:20 on Feb 16, 2012

PendingForaBending
Dec 30, 2005

How Bout Them Cowboys.
655 tonight, 228-190-237. 3 opens in the second game, and leaving single pins like crazy too. Average up to 207, highest I've ever carried this late in the season.

To everyone bowling in the Open, good luck, I hope to join you guys someday.

PendingForaBending
Dec 30, 2005

How Bout Them Cowboys.
Rough night last night. 196-175-191. In the 2nd game I left 7 single pins in such a way that if I carried any of them it would've produced a double. All this, and I have to watch the other team go Brooklyn for half the night and carry everything. My spare shooting was horrendous to say the least, but I was in the pocket all night. I was doing something weird with my wrist shooting 10 pins so I'll have to get that straightened out, because position night is next week.

PendingForaBending
Dec 30, 2005

How Bout Them Cowboys.
Yeah, those are some ridiculous swings in scores. For a guy who averages around 190 I think that they should be able to at least pull 150 out of their rear end on their worst days.

PendingForaBending
Dec 30, 2005

How Bout Them Cowboys.
I think its good to have one even if it doesnt get used every week. Right now, I bowl at a place that just cakes the lanes in oil so there isn't much of a break on the back ends of our lanes, so I can pretty much shoot any ball I have at any spares. If you have an aggressive ball though sometimes it can turn over at the last second and start chopping spares and missing single pins and that can be frustrating, so its good to have something that will go straight lying around. So I would recommend it.

PendingForaBending
Dec 30, 2005

How Bout Them Cowboys.
212-235-256 for a 703. 3rd 700 in 6 weeks and the 5th of the year. I think my previous high for a season was 2. Took 5/7 on position night and we bowl against the 2nd place team again next week. So we have a really good chance to gain some ground.

Edit: For the thumb, it can depend on how much you bowl too. When I used to bowl a lot, my right thumb would get almost twice the size of my left. But yeah, I always keep my thumb drilled big and just tape it up anyway.

PendingForaBending fucked around with this message at 05:59 on Mar 6, 2012

PendingForaBending
Dec 30, 2005

How Bout Them Cowboys.
Shot my first 300 tonight :woop:. Went 223-249-300 for a 772, an all time high series.

Get this though, I was absolutely on fire through the 1st 9, all perfect shots. In the 10th though I trip 8 counts on slow rolling messengers twice. I was actually visibly shaking. On the 1st ball I tripped the 6-10, and on the last ball I tripped the 3-6. I thought it was 298 for sure. Certainly makes up for the solid 10 I left on a 299 last year.

PendingForaBending
Dec 30, 2005

How Bout Them Cowboys.
Yeah, I had done that a few times. I've also had 11 strikes in a game something like 7 times before this too, and had taken the perfect game into 10th 3 times missing on each of the 3 strikes in the different games.

PendingForaBending
Dec 30, 2005

How Bout Them Cowboys.
Your follow through definitely looks good now, I think you are ready to go out there and tear it up, good luck man.

PendingForaBending
Dec 30, 2005

How Bout Them Cowboys.
238-280-171, for a 689 last night. Last game the right lane just fell apart on me. 3 opens and I didn't get a strike on that lane until the 9th frame, when I had gotten all 7 on it in the previous game. We were bowling against the Vacant team though last night so we took an easy 7 and maintained our first place team lead.

Got the average up to 209 though. The goal for the season was to raise from my 204 last year to 210 so I just need to keep it up.

PendingForaBending
Dec 30, 2005

How Bout Them Cowboys.
Have you guys decided on what patterns were going to go out for the rest of the year? Because if so it is loving bullshit that he would want to get the pattern changed because he sucked rear end for 1 week. If the patterns had been decided on previously I would say something if it ended up getting changed because one guy is a giant rear end in a top hat.

PendingForaBending
Dec 30, 2005

How Bout Them Cowboys.
244-221-216, for a 681 tonight. Left 6 10's and 3 9 pins tonight. I have figured something out with shooting 10 pins though. My accuracy has greatly improved by aiming 3/4 of the way down the lane instead of at the arrows, normally out of those 6 I probably would've missed 2 of them, but I was 6/6 tonight and perfect when throwing in practice. Our team took all 7 again and are 13 points ahead of the number 2 team with 5 weeks to go.

PendingForaBending
Dec 30, 2005

How Bout Them Cowboys.
220-243-186, 649. Team took all 7 again, and our Magic number for clinching the league is down to 8 with 3 weeks left. We'll bowl against the 2nd place team twice in that span, so we can double down on those points and can clinch the league by winning just 2 games out of 6 against them directly. Its not a big money league or anything, but you do get a little extra for being in first place.

PendingForaBending
Dec 30, 2005

How Bout Them Cowboys.
Good job on the 300. That'll make up for whatever else happened out there. Sorry about your center man, that blows.

PendingForaBending
Dec 30, 2005

How Bout Them Cowboys.
256-227-279, 762 overall. I was on fire last night. In the 279 I left a solid 8 pin in the 4th frame, but I had a Brooklyn strike a little later on so I can't feel too bad about it. Our team locked up 1st place with 2 weeks left so the pressure is completely off at this point.

My bowling has improved so much just by doing a couple of things differently. I used to stand all the way at the back of the approach with a 5 step approach. I took about a 3/4 step forward to shorten everything up (still 5 steps) and my balance is much better at the line which has greatly improved my consistency. I moved up to a 16 pound ball so my carry percentage seems better. And I'm shooting different marks on my right side (aiming far down the lane) and left side (arrows) spares.

In the first half before Christmas I averaged 204. This half I've been around 220-225, with 5 700 series. So needless to say, I've been on the best stretch of bowling in my life these past few months so hopefully I can actually keep this up.

PendingForaBending
Dec 30, 2005

How Bout Them Cowboys.
225-168-267. 660 overall, so not bad, but made a poor adjustment in the 2nd game. I was left in a position too where I didn't throw a good ball a couple times after the adjustment so I stuck it out after that a little more than I should to make sure it was the line and not just me.

So I'm going to try to bowl a sport shot league this summer. I've never done that before so I'm not sure what to expect. I know its going to be much harder, but are there any goons out there who have the experience making the switch?

PendingForaBending
Dec 30, 2005

How Bout Them Cowboys.
I do throw straight at all of my spares right now. I don't throw particularly hard at them though. I notice that the pros throw their plastic balls at spares at like 25 MPH. Do they do this because even the plastic balls grab a little bit on the lanes?

PendingForaBending
Dec 30, 2005

How Bout Them Cowboys.
Good to know, I'll definitely have to keep that in mind when going across the middle at spares. I feel like Osku Palermaa's arm is going to come flying out of the socket one of these days still attached to the ball. I'm amazed that it goes even remotely in the direction that he wants it to go. Pretty amazing stuff.

PendingForaBending
Dec 30, 2005

How Bout Them Cowboys.
I've done duckpin bowling before but I've never heard of 5-pin bowling. Looks fun though I have to admit.

PendingForaBending
Dec 30, 2005

How Bout Them Cowboys.

Critical posted:

A quick rule of thumb on the Kegel patterns, if that's what you're using. Take the length of the pattern, subtract 31 and that's the board you want to target to start. Some patterns you'll still be targeting there and just moving your feet, some you'll be moving all over the lane.

For example, I'm on Winding Road now, which is 39 feet. So my target at the beginning of the night is 8 board. It doesn't stay there long, but that's a good starting point.

Also, you'll want to pay attention who is ahead of you if you're moving across pairs, or who is bowling with you if you stay on the same pair. Look where they are playing and the lines they are carving out and how they adjust. You have to make your own room on a sport pattern, so if someone similar to your style has a wide open shot, steal it. Do this during practice, too. If everyone is playing inside there's a reason for it. You're not going to overpower a lane unless you have 550 revs. And in some cases that won't even help you.

Above all, you will get frustrated. You will be in a groove and then your line will evaporate on literally the next shot. You will learn to shoot every spare. You will have an opponent who has ten boards of room while you have two. And you will shoot 150s to start, but you will improve so much that a house shot is laughable.

Thanks for the advice. I'm really looking forward to the challenge and I know that it will start off really rough. But its a summer league and most importantly I'm looking for the experience and I won't be too hard on myself for being well below my average.

PendingForaBending
Dec 30, 2005

How Bout Them Cowboys.
Been bowling the Kegel Navigation Series this summer so far and I'm 4 weeks in. First week I bowled on Broadway, which I had a pretty tough time on. It was really weird the whole series because on the left lane I was fine, and I actually got a strike most of the time on it. But the right lane was a whole different story, I left the 2-8-10 or some variation, no joke, at least 10 times. Shot 502 because I couldn't string anything together and was lucky to get there to be honest.

Second week, I bowled Easy Street, which is a pretty close to a standard house shot I think. Shot 649 on it, so it was nice to rebound.

Last night, I bowled Middle Road for 2 series (pre-bowling for next week). Shot 210-216-222 for a 648 the first series and 193-187-270 for a 650 for the second one. I found this pattern to be easier than Broadway because it was a little more forgiving on the outside if you missed. I was playing a line a lot more inside than I normally do, but it was working pretty well (hence the name of the pattern).

Its been fun to try some shots that are outside of my comfort zone, and I'm really looking forward to shooting some of the sport patterns, but we don't get to those for another 3 weeks. I missed the first week of this league, which had the USBC nationals pattern down, which I heard was really tough, so it sucks that I missed that one.

PendingForaBending
Dec 30, 2005

How Bout Them Cowboys.
Shot on the Wall Street pattern from Kegal last night. Its a recreation pattern thats pretty close to a house shot so it wasn't too different than what I'm used to except maybe that the back ends had a little more snap. Shot 192-244-229. The other team wasn't there so I don't know how we did, but they were the 1st place team with us sitting (way behind) in 2nd. Same pattern next week and then on to our first sport pattern of the summer.

Does anyone know where I can see some oil diagrams for PBA shots? I looked on their website and it only describes them in words which isn't very enlightening.

PendingForaBending
Dec 30, 2005

How Bout Them Cowboys.
Nice, thanks. :)

I had never seen the shark pattern before, but that looks really hard.

PendingForaBending
Dec 30, 2005

How Bout Them Cowboys.
Wall Street again last night. Pretty easy pattern much like any house shot. 248-198-204 for 650 total. Lost the 2nd game by 1 pin because I chopped a spare in the 9th frame, so even though I struck out the 10th I couldn't make it up. Won the rest of my points though. We have a sport pattern next week, but I'll be out of town so I'll have to make it up. Hopefully I won't miss it outright because I was hoping that the whole summer would be sport patterns.

PendingForaBending
Dec 30, 2005

How Bout Them Cowboys.
Nice job. 2 week turn around on awards is equally as impressive compared to how it works where I'm at.

PendingForaBending
Dec 30, 2005

How Bout Them Cowboys.
Bowled a doubles tournament yesterday on Dead Mans Curve. Pretty tough shot especially when it breaks down, but I did alright but never broke through in any squad that I bowled.

Did 5 squads and shot 172-199, 201-220, 160-221, 201-211, 210-197. They adjusted my book average for the shot down to 198 and I shot almost exactly that over 10 games. The first 3 squads were on pretty torched lanes so the pattern was really tough on those. They oiled before the last two so I was a lot more consistent but I felt that I was a few 10 pin leaves away from breaking out in some of those games.

One of my squads was in 9th place when I left which should bring in a little money but there are still 3 more days of bowling to be done for this tournament.

Edit: Well, I did terrible and felt terrible in league last night. I guess 10 games the day before will do that to you and I'm not teenager anymore (I used to do this regularly when I worked at a bowling alley in high school). 182-132-:stonk:-186 on Boardwalk, which a lot of people had a tough time on. 3 of 6 people on the pair have averages above 200 in this league and the high series on the pair was 546, and that guy shot 244 his first game. The last game I just decided that I didn't even want to try for strikes anymore and just left spares that I could make and shot a clean 186. Won 2 of 3 games plus series at least.

PendingForaBending fucked around with this message at 15:17 on Jul 3, 2012

PendingForaBending
Dec 30, 2005

How Bout Them Cowboys.
Shot 634 (235-224-175) on Beaten Path tonight. It was a pretty good shot, had something straight up 10 the whole night, but just caught some bad breaks in the last game. We bowl on it again next week so I think that I can really break out on this pattern.

PendingForaBending
Dec 30, 2005

How Bout Them Cowboys.
200 revs is impressive. My buddy that I bowl Mondays with has some of there equipment and it looks pretty awesome, so I may have to pick one up if I get some new equipment.

Shot Highway to Hell again last night and was thoroughly humbled yet again. Shot 550 or so the first week, with 2 strong games and 1 lousy one in the middle, and just over 500 last night with 2 abysmal games. Tons of splits because I just couldn't swing my ball out without catching on the part of the lane that all of our lines were on before. Very tough shot, but were done with sport patterns for the summer. I've certainly learned a lot about what needs to be done on these patterns and will have to do a league like this again next summer.

PendingForaBending
Dec 30, 2005

How Bout Them Cowboys.

Scarf posted:

Now they feel like leagues are keeping them from bringing in big crowds in the middle of the week :jerkbag:

Yeah, because you know what is better than 34 weeks of dedicated bowlers? People who decide to go on a random Wednesday night on a whim. It'll probably cost about 10 bucks a game for open play pretty soon.

PendingForaBending
Dec 30, 2005

How Bout Them Cowboys.
First night of my Tuesday night league started out well. 214-184-246. We managed to win 25/30 points which is always a nice way to start off the year. Looking forward to this league because the level of competition should be up a bit from last year while not being too uptight about stuff (that league starts at the other end of the house next week).

PendingForaBending
Dec 30, 2005

How Bout Them Cowboys.

Whale Cancer posted:

Ladies and Gentlemen, I bowled my first 600 series yesterday :smugdog: 232-226-208.

Thats a hell of a 600 to break in with, very nice.

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PendingForaBending
Dec 30, 2005

How Bout Them Cowboys.
Some of the guys on tour, like Osku, shoot at right side spares one handed. The advantage that you have with two hands being all the extra rotation you can get on the ball isn't needed for those single pin spares so it might be good to develop a one-handed straight shot at them. Also, if the lanes get really dry you can get a plastic ball to move a little too much too handed and that could cause some problems way out to the right.

We had our roll off this week. Shot 214-269-257 for 740 total, my high of the season. We only won totals by 30 pins after splitting the first two games we went into the last game up by 10. Everyone on the pair was bowling great that night, so it set up for a pretty good showdown.

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