When making adjustments what increments do you use

[Tony]

What I hear people talk about and what I also used to do was adjust the starting position or the board I'm rolling over in increments of one board at a time. It came to me one day as I moved a board and found it was too much that I started moving 1/2 or even a 1/4 of a board on my starting position and still moved my target a full board when needed.

[Stormed1]

A lot depends on where i am bowling. At the center I bowl at on Monday and Wednesday my moves are generally 3 and 2. However on Friday's it's usually a and 1

[billf]

Adjustments depend on lane surface and bowler style including rev rate, rotation and tilt. While strokers and low rev/speed dominant players usually make smaller adjustments moves less than a board on THS seems like a waste of time.
THS give so much miss room while league bowlers tend to miss the target at least 25% of the time why bother?

Anyway back to your question. How far do I adjust. I will start playing straight up 10. As it breaks down I will swing it out. When that breaks down I move, left of eveybody so at least to 32. So when I make this move my adjustment is 17 left with my feet and 8 at the arrows while increasing axis rotation.

[Amyers]

Depends on what I'm trying to do. If I need to expose the ball more to the dry I might make a 3-1 adjustment if I'm trying to get more oil 2-2 or 3-2. I've found 1 board or less adjustments to be useless as they are below my margin of error. if your making 1/2 board adjustments and having success with it then that's great just understand it's more likely luck than the adjustment unless your much more accurate than the average bowler.

[Aslan]

I adjust based on what is left. Depending on what you leave and where your ball exits that pin deck, that determines how much of a move you make with your eyes and feet.

Where I struggle are moves right. Most leaves require a move left or indicate a change to a weaker ball. But, sometimes you start bowling, maybe at a different center or something, and you are hitting light, missing right of the headpin, etc... I don't have a system yet for that. I used to just move a little right with my feet and straighten out my shot. But that leads to essentially playing up the oil line versus playing the breakpoint. And if I'm hitting light because I'm using the strongest ball (but the wrong ball) based on it burning up...again, haven't really adopted a good strategy for that just yet.

[RobLV1]

This is a very interesting discussion, but the one thing that I've not seen mentioned is communication between teammates. This is huge in many scratch leagues. In my Tuesday night league, for example, our Team name is "Lane Exploded" for the propensity for modern lanes to change quickly and drastically. While we need to compensate for different rev rates and ball speeds, we always discuss adjustments among ourselves, just as we always discuss lane differences between the two lanes that make up the "pair." Just last week, I made a 3/2 adjustment based on my prior reaction on one lane, along with reactions of other bowler's shots. I was able to strike on my next shot, and because of it one of my teammates who has more ball speed, a higher rev rate, and more rotation moved 5/3 and also struck. Modern bowling is a game of information if you want to succeed, and the information should come from observation as well as communication with your teammates.

[bobforsaken]

I'm starting to focus on my breakpoint first, then adjust based on that. I usually do a 3 and 2 move if I want to keep the same breakpoint. If I want to move the breakpoint closer to the gutter then I'll do a 1&0 or 2&1 If I want to make a smaller adjustment to move the breakpoint 1 board closer to the headpin (and stay in the oil just a bit more) I'll do a 1&1.

Most times I'm sticking with 3&2 and 1&1 moves, unless I decide I'm just playing the wrong breakpoint.

[Tony]

I can see the point of comments that less than a board of adjustment is meaningless considering the average miss rate of a league bowler, I doubt my accuracy is that much better than the average but the 1/2 board moves do seem to have worked for me of late. Might be all psychological, but given that a big part of bowling is a mental game if it seems to be working I'll keep on experimenting with it.

[Amyers]

I can see the point of comments that less than a board of adjustment is meaningless considering the average miss rate of a league bowler, I doubt my accuracy is that much better than the average but the 1/2 board moves do seem to have worked for me of late. Might be all psychological, but given that a big part of bowling is a mental game if it seems to be working I'll keep on experimenting with it.

Often more important than if something really works is if you believe it will work.

[Aslan]

This is a very interesting discussion, but the one thing that I've not seen mentioned is communication between teammates. This is huge in many scratch leagues. In my Tuesday night league, for example, our Team name is "Lane Exploded" for the propensity for modern lanes to change quickly and drastically. While we need to compensate for different rev rates and ball speeds, we always discuss adjustments among ourselves, just as we always discuss lane differences between the two lanes that make up the "pair." Just last week, I made a 3/2 adjustment based on my prior reaction on one lane, along with reactions of other bowler's shots. I was able to strike on my next shot, and because of it one of my teammates who has more ball speed, a higher rev rate, and more rotation moved 5/3 and also struck. Modern bowling is a game of information if you want to succeed, and the information should come from observation as well as communication with your teammates.

If I had to list reasons why that doesn't happen:
1) Very tiny % of people bowl scratch leagues.
2) Most bowlers don't listen to other bowlers.
3) With bowling being a sport of varied styles, it often times isn't as helpful.

I know we touched on this in another thread...but on the two teams I'm on now (5-person and a 4-person, both mixed":

- There are 3 left-handed bowlers. In addition, two of them throw essentially thumbless. One throws like me, but on the left side. All are younger and unlikely to take "coaching".

- There are 3 females. All right-handers; but two bowl back-up. The other one bowls more like me...but at a very low speed.

- The only right-handed male bowler besides me throws a straight ball up third arrow...and at a low speed (he's coming off injury).

So what can be learned in that scenario? You can't assume the left side plays the same as the right because 1) That's an assumption and 2) It's statistically a bad assumption because there are less LHers in our population which means the right side of the lane will almost always have more traffic/abuse that will likely lead it to react differently than the left.

The other bowlers don't have any speed or any revs. Sometimes I can watch the one female bowler that plays a similar line to see 'maybe' when the ball begins to encounter friction...but other than that...it's hard to get useful data.

For higher level, scratch bowlers and tournament teams...I think that's a great and under-utilized tool (communication). But for 96% of bowlers...not so much.