Luck!

[J Anderson]

Frankly, I decided to post this 'cause it's caused quite a few discussions with bowlers to whom I've present it.

While seeing bowlers whine, shrug their shoulders in amazement and complain about everything bad that happens to them, it occurred to me that the only luck in bowling is good luck. Anything bad that happens to you when you're bowling has a reason; it's either something you did, or something that you failed to notice. Every ten pin has a reason. Every seven-ten split has a reason. Every solid seven has a reason, and, yes, every solid eight pin has a reason.

On the other hand, every Brooklyn strike is good luck. Every swisher strike is good luck. Every ten pin that falls when it should have stood, is good luck.

Comments?

When I started bowling at the age of 16 in an adult league, if you left a single pin standing the most common comment you would get from the other bowlers on the pair was " Hit nine, get nine". This comment would almost always come if that last pin rocked but didn't fall. Once in a great while a sympathetic teammate might say something like " you got robbed", but most of the time even your teammates would opine that you should have thrown a better shot.
Fast forward to the two leagues I bowl in today. Monday is a singles scratch sport league. In this league most people are caught up in trying to figure out how they should be playing each lane. You are not likely to receive either sympathy or criticism, just a sportsmanlike fist bump or "Good shot" after a strike or a spare. Thursday's league is a social league that had started as a league for teachers in a local school system. There are only a few active teachers left but still a significant number of retired teachers and guidance counselors. In this league any shot that looks vaguely in the pocket and yet doesn't strike will get a lot of comments from both friend and foe to the effect that it should have been a strike.

Given my start in this game, even before I read any articles or posts by Rob, I tended to think that I deserved what ever I left after the first ball. And yet even last Monday I had one shot that teetered on the edge of the gutter then made it back to hit the headpin and strike. I suppose if you had a video of that shot going through the pins you could figure out why it was a strike and not a greek church, but when you throw a ball that poorly can you really attribute the strike to anything other than good luck?

Logically, if there is no bad luck there can not be any good luck. The apparent good luck is the result of things that we were not observant enough to see. However Humans always seek to assign a cause to any event. Thus that stone 8 must have just been bad luck. But when it's good luck we're more likely tottery and claim some of the credit for ourselves.

[SRB57]

I pretty much know why I leave ten pins. The solid 8 pins are harder to explain but part of the game. I bowl with one guy that complains about carry all the time and won't listen about why. My problem with carry is all on me as I seem to get lazy at release and don't go through the shot well so been concentrating on that and carry is much better. The guys on my teams don't like when I flush one and come back shaking my head because I missed inside and the lane condition rewarded me. Steve

[boatman37]

I played football in high school on a pretty good team. Backstory...we were the smallest team in our conference size-wise. My sophomore year we had a 250lb kid but next behind him was about 210-220. My junior year our biggest player was Keith Nelson from Buckcherry so Google him to see his size (maybe 6'0 and about 220). We went to the championship game my sophomore year and lost 14-13. My junior year we won the championship. The reason for the backstory was that our coach worked us hard and made us believe in ourselves. We didn't believe in luck. There was a sign hanging above his office door that read 'I'm a firm believer in luck but it seems the harder I try the more luck I have'. That always stuck with me so I try hard to make my own luck. Everything happens for a reason. You trip and fall down the steps, that isn't bad luck. Should have been more careful.

BTW-that football team...I wasn't that good so spent most of my time on the bench...lol

[RobLV1]

Well, yes I do check the rack - every time. And I am not opposed to re-racking as we have several lanes at one house that are really bad at off-sets. If that's the reason, then it is so minimal it isn't seen with the naked eye. Or maybe my surgery wasn't as great as I think it was.

Often, when the seven pin is involved, it's because the four pin is off-spot forward, and that is very hard to see.

[Phonetek]

I noticed a strange phenomenon where the vibration of bowling on adjacent lanes to the vacant ones actually causes pins to slide off spot on the vacant lanes. Not just a little bit either. I guess in a house this big it makes sense there is a lot of vibration.

Needless to say a rerack is in order your first ball unless it's practice.

[RobLV1]

One of the most enjoyable things about starting a thread like this, for me, is that I continue to think about the subject based on how you all respond. J Anderson wrote, "Logically, if there is no bad luck there can not be any good luck." That got me thinking.

I still maintain that there is nothing that happens at the pins that is bad luck for you, the bowler. It's never bad luck, because it was caused by something, and that something is in your power to control; usually. If it is not in your power to control, like a habitually bad rack or some topography that cannot be overcome, then the only bad luck is that you wound up on that pair, and that's not really your bad luck because it happened to everyone who is on that pair. If it happened to your competitors, then you all have an equal opportunity to overcome it, and it depends on your skill level as to how well you do that; skill, not luck.

It also occurs to me that the only real bad luck that we encounter on the lanes is the good luck that finds our competitors. Consider that a ball that misses it's target by four boards to the inside crosses over and enters the pocket on the opposite side from where we intended. That shot may leave a five-seven split, or a five-ten split, or it may result in a Brooklyn strike. If it results in a strike, then it's good luck for our competitor, and bad luck for us. While our competitors good luck may result in our bad luck, it is equally possible that our own good luck results in bad luck for our competitors. In other words, we can control our own bad luck, but our competitors good luck is beyond our control, and it all comes out in the wash anyway. Certainly nothing to feel victimized over!

Comments?

[Phonetek]

To me it sounds like people aren’t realizing how much luck is actually involved in bowling. Even Earl that robot couldn’t bowl a perfect game for quite a while if I recall and the robot was essentially perfect every shot.

To imagine any of us are thinking we are so skillful that no luck either way is involved in the majority of our shots then we are in denial. LOL The ones that get upset about bad luck are delusional. Some of us just do enough things right consistently enough to have luck go in our favor more times than not.

Just like that 277 I bowled last week with a 12 lb plastic ball. There was 10% skill and 90% luck. All I did was chuck it on the lane in a way that was somehow beneficial way to where the bowling gods thought it was good enough to have luck go in my favor in an inordinate amount of times than normal.

If I could repeat it a few dozen more consecutive times I could possibly claim otherwise. Hence the reason after the game was over I removed my bowling shoes and walked away. I knew repeating it was never gonna happen. Well, plus I didn’t wanna risk hurting myself. I could have just as easily shot 77 instead and I couldn’t have been upset. I could of but it would have been idiotic as claiming I was that good to shoot that high score to begin with.