what to do when nothing works???

[boatman37]

So last night I tried everything I could think of and just couldn't get it. Part of it was me being inconsistent but last night was one of those nights where nothing went my way. My spare game was decent so no complaints there but in a 4 game set I only had 14 strikes. Normally I'm around 20-22 or so.

Lanes seemed a little dry but ball wasn't reacting much. I say dry cause usually I see at least some oil ring. I saw none lsat night at all. I started out around the 6-7 board at the arrows and kept leaving a pin. Moved in to the 10 board and still couldn't carry. Switched from the Conspiracy to the Kingpin, no change. Spread pinky wide, tried pinky tight, ended up the last 3 games with the pinky tucked just to get movement. Varied my ball speed by over 2 MPH. Nothing helped. Can't say t was the lanes cause the teams we bowled against killed it last night. A guy we bowled against was also a lefty with a similar line to mine rolled a 266 and 245 against us. Sure he was more consistent but when he hit the pocket he struck. When I hit the pocket I got an 8 or 9 count. Seemed like most of the night I was hitting light when I did miss the pocket. I probably hit between the 1 and 2 pin on about 90% of my shots with maybe 50% being nice looking pocket hits.

Last night in 4 games I left the following:

7 pin - 5 times
4 pin - 3 times
4-7 - 3 times
2-4 - times
3-5-6 - 2 times

and a bunch of others that I left once but those were the most common.

The only thing I didn't try was the Hammer BWG and I didn't try anything inside the 10 board. I'm a speed dominant bowler so anytime I get inside the 10 board my ball goes straight.

So what else can we do when we face this? Like I said, I can't blame it on the lanes cause our opponents killed it all night so obviously it was something either me or the ball was causing. If you suggest a ball change then to what? Both my Kingpin and Conspiracy are very similar in shape and reaction. The Conspiracy (which I used most of the night) was coming back very dry and with what looks kinda like rub marks on it. Not from the return but from the lanes. I have seen it before with this ball. The track looks almost like somebody took an eraser the whole way around the track. Should I have went with something with less surface? Ball burning up? I didn't try the BWG cause it hooks less than the others and they weren't coming in.

Just trying to figure this out here. Lots of guys that face these conditions blame it on the lanes and say there was nothing they could do. I don't buy that when others are scoring good on the same lanes so I know there is something I can do differently, just need to figure out what that is. Lanes have been on the dryer side like this most of the summer.

[Amyers]

I think you probably answered your own question here. My guesstimate is you were burning up a bit causing your issues. The 2 balls that your using are both oil monsters as a speed dominate bowler you get a way with that quite a bit but if your lanes tend to be like mine they have less volume during the summer or at least it feels that way. The move here was probably to switch to BWG. On the right condition that ball will actually hook more than your Conspiracy or King Pin at least on the back end.

Sometime nothing works and you just have one of those nights but if you eliminate your options before you start that's often a big mistake

[J Anderson]

Looking at your other post that shows what pins you left each frame, you had 44 shots at a full rack. The one pin or the two pin was missed 9 times so your pocket percentage was only 80%, using the loosest possible definition of the pocket. Using a more traditional definition of the pocket, we would eliminate those shots where the 3 pin or the 4 pin were left standing. That means that of the 35 times you hit the one & the two pin, 28 were traditional pocket hits, so 80% of the time when you technically hit the pocket it probably looked good. Extremely frustrating when the other team is carrying like crazy.

So enough statistics. Two suggestions:
One. If there is any other lefty on the pair having success, watch where they are playing. See it you can get one of your balls to his or her breakpoint.
Two. Try to watch your ball all the way through the pins. I say try because I’m terrible at this. I can tell you what board I hit at the arrows, where my ball started to hook, where it hit the pins, but 3 out of 4 times I don’t see where it goes off the pin deck.

[boatman37]

lol. good suggestions. Yeah i can usually tell where my ball hits at the arrows but not usually much past that. just seems everything goes too fast at that point...lol. I didn't do awful, just not as good as I would have liked and the fact that nothing I did helped. My average is 180 and I averaged 178 last night so not too far off. The other lefty had alot more revs with his release so that wasn't something I could replicate but he was laying it down about the same spot I was.

Actually last I bowled 2 weeks ago (we have a 3 man team and rotate) I ended up using my BWG and it did seem to work best that night and I had a decent night. The BWG does go a little longer with a little more angularity at the back. I actually made a conscious decision not to take the BWG out of the bag as it seems if I have too many choices I'm too quick to jump around and not work through an issue. Might have to rethink that BWG this summer...lol

Something our PSO said last week (he rolled a 300 last week). He said he likes to use a ball that reads earlier and has a smoother arc in the summer. Said it is too hard and too much work to use more of a backend ball in the summer. He didn't elaborate on why.

Added my scores to make it easier to see what i left

https://i.postimg.cc/PrzdyMKf/2019-07-02.png (https://postimages.org/)

[RobLV1]

You talk about where you were playing at the arrows compared to the other lefty, but where were each of you playing at the end of the pattern. The arrows are meaningless. It's all about utilizing oil at the end of the pattern. By the way, when you assume that you can't move inside of ten, you make an *** out of U and ME!

[six6guy]

I would agree... summer oil conditions and oil hungry balls... even with speed and revs, **** can happen.

Maybe a new medium hook ball (for medium/dry conditions) is called for.

[boatman37]

You talk about where you were playing at the arrows compared to the other lefty, but where were each of you playing at the end of the pattern. The arrows are meaningless. It's all about utilizing oil at the end of the pattern. By the way, when you assume that you can't move inside of ten, you make an *** out of U and ME!

Didn't say I CAN'T play inside the 10, just that my balls goes straight. But looking back I probably should have tried it.

I haven't been able to tell where I am that far downlane. Probably cause I'm too focused on my release and seeing where I crossed the arrows at that I miss where it was downlane. I know you mentioned before about looking downlane but it's hard to do since I have been doing that since about 1980...lol.

If it is like this next week I will try the BWG and try going inside the 10 board. I will try to get a look at the breakpoint but not sure how that will go.

[RobLV1]

Note that I did not say that you should target down lane, but regardless of where you look, you should always notice where your ball is at all points as it travels down the lane. Personally, I always look at the reflection of the pins during my set up and approach, but I always notice where the ball is at the arrows as well, even though I don't target there. Also, please show me where the ball has to hook to knock down ten pins. Often straighter really is greater.

[boatman37]

I tried looking down lane awhile back when you mentioned it before but it was hard to tell where it was as far as what board. I see some lanes have 4 darker boards down lane but ours doesn't have those so it makes it harder to tell if it is the 12 or 15 board. I did do a better job last night of slowing my speed down.

Also, last night one of our opponents mentioned he has to throw urethane. He didn't elaborate or say why but would a urethane have worked if my other stuff was burning up?

[boatman37]

So looking at my options I have the Brunswick Rhino Black which I use for 7 pins. It hardly hooks at all so probably not strong enough for a strike ball? Then the BWG. It seems to be better than the Conspiracy or Kingpin in these conditions. Maybe take a little surface off the BWG and try it? How about the new Radical Counter Attack? PSO has the solid and Pearl on the shelf. Hate to buy another ball so would hope to be able to use one of the ones I have now.

[ALazySavage]

"Also, last night one of our opponents mentioned he has to throw urethane. He didn't elaborate or say why but would a urethane have worked if my other stuff was burning up?"


I will be the first to say I love urethane, it is very controllable and I will pull it out of the bag when the shot is challenging and scoring pace is slow. If your urethane piece is oil soaked and hasn't been touched with surface for a long time you might be able to get away with it in this situation but there are going to be better choices out there. The misunderstanding around urethane is that when the marketing materials around it are put out they describe urethane as a light oil option and people assume that this means when there is little oil left or at the end of a block. In most instances urethane requires early hook to react properly and when you are talking about later in a block/league that is typically what you are trying to avoid/counter - the hate/difficulty around urethane is two-fold (a) depending on the flare characteristics of the ball you may create some carry-down which the urethane pieces can have trouble against (not going to get into a modern equipment argument on this - just keep in mind it is a great mind trick to make some bowlers who are set in their ways to think that you are ruining their shot) and (b) most importantly urethane typically has a lot of surface and you are destroying the fronts of the pattern - combine this with the characteristics of urethane and you can get something that burns up all of its energy early on. Personally if we are talking about equipment burning up you are much better off using equipment that gets down lane and conserves energy.

[ALazySavage]

Can't get the post to allow me to edit, when I say carry down with urethane and affecting urethane I'm using an environment where you do not have oil soaking equipment (this is where the modern equipment comes in play) cleaning up the breakpoint...remember that Urethane is not really a modern technology and the oil just sits on the surface. Right handed bowlers will likely have more players using the equipment that sucks up oil and thus reducing/eliminating such a change being created by one urethane piece - if you are playing urethane and that is giving you a part of the lane no one else is playing (or only other urethane players) you could potentially cause a carry down affect to urethane, but that is a pretty rare situation.

[RobLV1]

If you are using a modern urethane ball with a core, the carrydown argument is nonsense. If the ball is flaring, and a new track of surface is hitting the lane on each rotation, where does the carrydown come from? ... and please don't tell me that the one inch segment at the bow tie leaves little marks that do anything to affect the ball.

[ALazySavage]

Rob I agree with that, throwing urethane equipment with significant core properties...Hot Cells, BW Urethane, etc....will not create carry down (I have tried this argument for almost a year now when I want to throw urethane on the lanes - asymmetrical, high flaring). What I do see locally is people getting low flaring urethane (black hammer, pitch black) and then demanding that the drilling be so muted that it is essentially causing the ball not to flare signfiicantly because the perception is that they should be able to transition down to this equipment when the lanes get dry (especially those scared to move inside). What I am seeing with this is chewed up fronts, the ball picks up some oil in the midlane but at that point it has already used up its energy and could essentially carry down oil (granted a small enough amount that it should not affect the bowler, but if you have enough traffic it has a slight chance to). There are so many external factors that have to come in play with this that rather than say all of that I rather just claim it as a very rare situation that we don't worry about on the lanes. As we both know on the typical house shot, and hopefully most of this board realizes as well, the standard adjustments should be one of three things - move inside to find more oil, transition to equipment that gets further down lane and conserves energy, or make a hand adjustment to get the ball to be cleaner through the fronts. - all of which we are saying would be the preferred moves in this situation.

[RobLV1]

A couple of years ago, in conjunction with a BTM article I was preparing, I had a tape taken two feet past the pattern end after a four game block in a trios league. What showed was two streak of carry down, each of them just 2 units of oil. Reactive balls won't "see" two units of oil. I firmly believe that what we are seeing when the ball seems to straighten out late in a set is one of two things: burn-out in the friction, or negative topography that has been exposed as the oil has been absorbed off of the lane.

[boatman37]

Well tonight worked great. Hit the Black Widow Gold with a 4000 by hand before we started tonight. Tried all 4 in warmups but stuck with the BWG all night. Kept my pinky in tight to my ring finger all night to get a little more rotation. In the past I had usually had it spread away but lately have been keeping it tight. I targeted the 7 board at the arrows all night and only had to move about 1/2 board left by the end of the night as I started hitting light. The Conspiracy was burning up last week and I left alot of corner pins. The BWG goes further down lane before reacting so thought it might be better. For the heck of it I threw my Rhino Pearl in warmups. I only use that ball for 7 pins. It would have even worked tonight if I wanted to use it and had adjusted just a little. I stood in the same spot as I was for the BWG and hit a little light. A 1 board move left would have probably put it right in the pocket.

I tried watching the breakpoint but couldn't tell much. I didn't try targeting the breakpoint at all cause I had a good night going and didn't want to make any changes that might mess me up.

My spare shooting was still pretty bad tonight. Not sure why I missed so many easy spares.

Tonight: 245, 202, 201, 215. 863 series. 215.75 average. My overall average went up 5 pins to 185. Just hope I can keep this up but I do feel a little more confident about ball selection now. I credit tonight with doing a better job of matching the ball to lane conditions.

https://i.postimg.cc/kg2648bP/2019-07-09.png (https://postimages.org/)

[Amyers]

Well tonight worked great. Hit the Black Widow Gold with a 4000 by hand before we started tonight. Tried all 4 in warmups but stuck with the BWG all night. Kept my pinky in tight to my ring finger all night to get a little more rotation. In the past I had usually had it spread away but lately have been keeping it tight. I targeted the 7 board at the arrows all night and only had to move about 1/2 board left by the end of the night as I started hitting light. The Conspiracy was burning up last week and I left alot of corner pins. The BWG goes further down lane before reacting so thought it might be better. For the heck of it I threw my Rhino Pearl in warmups. I only use that ball for 7 pins. It would have even worked tonight if I wanted to use it and had adjusted just a little. I stood in the same spot as I was for the BWG and hit a little light. A 1 board move left would have probably put it right in the pocket.

I tried watching the breakpoint but couldn't tell much. I didn't try targeting the breakpoint at all cause I had a good night going and didn't want to make any changes that might mess me up.

My spare shooting was still pretty bad tonight. Not sure why I missed so many easy spares.

Tonight: 245, 202, 201, 215. 863 series. 215.75 average. My overall average went up 5 pins to 185. Just hope I can keep this up but I do feel a little more confident about ball selection now. I credit tonight with doing a better job of matching the ball to lane conditions.

https://i.postimg.cc/kg2648bP/2019-07-09.png (https://postimages.org/)

Awesome night bud, hopefully that will help a bit

[boatman37]

So something else worth mentioning. In our summer league we bowl 2 games against one team then change pairs and bowl 2 more against a different team. Tuesday night we started on 39-40 then the 2nd set we bowled on 1-2. The 2 end sets. Everybody hates these lanes but I usually bowl decent on 39-40. We only bowl on 1-2 in the fall league so I don't bowl on those much.

So what are the characteristics of the end pairs usually? Would that explain anything as to why I might have bowled so good on them? Usually drier? Dry quicker? Dry slower?

Just wondering if there is anything I might be able to figure out based on bowling on the 2 end pairs.

[Amyers]

So something else worth mentioning. In our summer league we bowl 2 games against one team then change pairs and bowl 2 more against a different team. Tuesday night we started on 39-40 then the 2nd set we bowled on 1-2. The 2 end sets. Everybody hates these lanes but I usually bowl decent on 39-40. We only bowl on 1-2 in the fall league so I don't bowl on those much.

So what are the characteristics of the end pairs usually? Would that explain anything as to why I might have bowled so good on them? Usually drier? Dry quicker? Dry slower?

Just wondering if there is anything I might be able to figure out based on bowling on the 2 end pairs.

For me its usually the variation between the two lanes with the farthest outside tending to play drier. Not sure why this would help you. Sometimes the differences aren't much but I've seen as much as a full arrow difference while using my strongest ball on one lane and my weakest on the other. Pretty sure the machine broke on that one. still shot 600 and was pretty happy that night.

[six6guy]

Just wondering if there is anything I might be able to figure out based on bowling on the 2 end pairs.

My experience is that it sometimes has to do with the oiling machine and the staff operating it. Assuming they start oiling on 1-2 there is maybe either little oil (machine just warming up) or possibly the reverse where there are a few extra units there (again machine just worming up). I've never seen both cases (less oil/more oil) at the same house and I think more normal for less oil, but the reason has to do with the warm up of the machine. That said I found that lane 1 is usually worse than lane 2, but both are less oil than any other pair. One or two boards difference between lane one and lane two is not uncommon. Some houses start at the right and work their way left and some start left and work their way right... so it's the 1st lane oiled, or two lanes oiled, that are different if their is any difference.

The other thing is that at some houses lane one is very close to the wall (no walkway there), so if you need to play deep on lane one you could be brushing the left wall (for right handed players).

[boatman37]

just thought maybe if i could figure out why i played better on the ends it might lead me to something? like maybe something i'm not realizing. so if the ends are always drier and i played better on them then maybe i have been using too little surface on a regular basis and not realizing it. i actually played these lanes the exact way i usually play, meaning i stood in the same spot and targeted the same spot as i usually do on most nights. only difference was my ball selection and the surface that was on it. i was maybe just a little more consistent that night but more than anything when i hit the pocket i got strikes where i usually get 9 counts

[RobLV1]

i actually played these lanes the exact way i usually play, meaning i stood in the same spot and targeted the same spot as i usually do on most nights.

This is terrifying!

[boatman37]

it worked...lol. now if i can just get it to work the other nights. i am getting more comfortable moving inside if i have to though.

[JasonNJ]

I think what's terrifying for Rob is that you need to watch your ball and play where the lanes tell you to play. Now about the end pairs playing differently, that is the case in most centers. Usually it's because the end pairs are closest to the outside elements and it affects their topography the most. Also as someone mentioned the lane machines, in my center they use an older Brunswick machine and for whatever reason it takes a few minutes to warm up and consistently lay oil, so if they start with the end pair, that first pair the lane pattern is not the most consistent.

[RobLV1]

I think what's terrifying for Rob is that you need to watch your ball and play where the lanes tell you to play. Now about the end pairs playing differently, that is the case in most centers. Usually it's because the end pairs are closest to the outside elements and it affects their topography the most. Also as someone mentioned the lane machines, in my center they use an older Brunswick machine and for whatever reason it takes a few minutes to warm up and consistently lay oil, so if they start with the end pair, that first pair the lane pattern is not the most consistent.

More than that, many centers with synthetic lane surfaces have never done anything in terms of repairing or replacing those surfaces or the underlying support structures in the last 20 years or more. Topography is becoming more and more of an issue, and many long time bowlers refuse to even acknowledge its existence. I had one bowler tell me that it's just a few thousands of an inch, so what impact could it possibly have. Combine a few thousandths of an inch with the force that enables our sun which is 93,000,000 miles away to keep our entire planet in tow, and you have an incredibly major effect on a 15 lb bowling ball!

[p0ppyman]

As a strike ball and spare ball only shooter when nothing is working for me I slow everything down and focus on my approach first. I have a habit pf speeding up my approach and it wrecks my timing and therefore release. If my release is not good it does not matter what the lane conditions may be.

And with only one strike ball and a spare ball I don't have to worry about am I using the right ball. I probably am for lane conditions but there is not a thing I can do about it. :)