best way to destroy an oil pattern?

[JasonNJ]

So I'm bowling in a Monday night double league and I'm currently tied for first with another team. I'm playing this team next Monday and it's 2 young 20 something guys, one is a two hander and another is a traditional one hander but fairly high rev rate. Both play about 3rd arrow and in, while I'm usually around 2nd arrow. So my thought is to take a 180 grit sanded solid ball and just keep throwing their line in the 10 minutes of practice and then play right of that the rest of the night. I want them to have as early hook as possible and hopefully force them into playing an angle they aren't comfortable with. This is a low volume house shot. Anyway, I wanted to see if anyone thought this would work or would have a better idea.

[ALazySavage]

A few pieces of advice in this situation. First, make sure that you are not too worried about your competition that you neglect to do what you need to do for yourself. Second, If they are able to move inside of that line you may just create a really nice bump spot for them (if they are that high of rev blowing up the fronts may not be scary for them). If you are comfortable with the thought that they are not comfortable with that much angle this could work, but if this is a low volume pattern you also need to be careful that you don't blow up the area you would transition into.

[RobLV1]

Stop worrying about how to destroy someone else's shot, and find a shot that will allow your to win at least two out of three games. Trust me, it works!

[JasonNJ]

Well the 2 hander is inconsistent and I'm pretty sure he'll have trouble if the fronts are hooking. I also use pretty low flaring equipment and confident I can stay outside most of the night. Also I've never tried manipulating a lane pattern before and I'm interested to see if I can do it and get the lane conditions to be more favorable for me and my duo partner.

[ALazySavage]

Well the 2 hander is inconsistent and I'm pretty sure he'll have trouble if the fronts are hooking. I also use pretty low flaring equipment and confident I can stay outside most of the night. Also I've never tried manipulating a lane pattern before and I'm interested to see if I can do it and get the lane conditions to be more favorable for me and my duo partner.

So there are two very different thoughts going on here - the first was blowing up your opponent's shot and the second was making it more favorable for you and your teammate. A few things you will want to ask yourself before you go down this rabbit hole... (a) how good are you at reading your own ball roll and the ball roll of your opponents - i.e. how do you know that you are not actually not making a favorable shot for them (for example if the two hander uses equipment and throws the ball in a way that stores a ton of energy [making their reaction at the breakpoint crazy] how can you be sure that blowing up the fronts doesn't simply help them burn off some energy and make the breakpoint easier to control? (b) if you are capable of breaking down a pattern to make it more favorable for you why not do that? (c) I suspect there are a few of us that know how to break patterns down, but at least personally I know it took a lot of practice to really understand what I was doing and the best way to break down the pattern in a way that is beneficial/"destroying" a pattern and there are times that this can go bad (I saw this a lot in Syracuse last year at nationals watching team squads bowl, historically the way to score at nationals was to burn up the outside during practice with a lot of surface to create a really nice bump spot for your ball to react off of - many teams went in with the pre-conceived notion of this and burned that spot simply to find that there was already a lot of reaction baked into the pattern/lanes and they created way too much on the outside before the first game even started).

Just be careful and remember that during warm-up/the first few frames you will have to do the following if you do this... (1) you and your teammate still have to find a line, (2) you have to really pay attention to what the other team is doing so that you can "destroy" their actual line, (3) you have to execute properly enough times during warm-up to actually do damage to the line, (4) you have to watch the ball roll very closely of your opponents to make sure you are not just helping them out or not affecting their line and thus wasting your practice, (5) you have to throw the ball in such a manner that with your limited time you are breaking the pattern (watch the PBA to see how long it takes them to do damage to the pattern make sure you realistically are comparing your revs and ball speed to what they do...the greater the difference the longer this will take), (6) know how you will react if you spend the 10 minutes of warmup doing this and then they come out of the gates hot - the disappointment in this alone could mentally damage you for the rest of the night. There is a lot of things that you will have to ask yourself to accomplish in 10 minutes

-or-

You can do as Rob suggest above and focus on your game, find the best line and equipment choice, and understand you are tied for first for a reason.

[MajorPhoenix]

It seems like defensive bowling, but it also seems a bit unsportsmanlike to intentionally sabotage someone else's line. You do you, and that's all you can control.

[JerseyJim]

It seems like defensive bowling, but it also seems a bit unsportsmanlike to intentionally sabotage someone else's line. You do you, and that's all you can control.

Norm Duke has been known to screw with another bowler's shot on occasion.

There are a couple of bowlers in my league who chew up the area that I usually live in. Over the last couple of seasons, I've gotten comfortable playing inside of their lines. While not intentionally sabotaging their shot, I force them to make bigger adjustments than they are used to.

[p0ppyman]

I have confidence in my abilities so I bowl my game and let the pins fall where they will. While my preference is winning I have no issue congratulating a player on another team who bowled better than me on that particular day.