The FOFC Bowling Thread

[JediKooter]

What would Dusty Baker do?

[Pumpy Tudors]

Originally Posted by JediKooter

What would Dusty Baker do?

Probably sub me out for someone with a 96 average.

[spleen1015]

You've got to look at this right, Pumpy. Throw an 800 series and your team wins.

[Glengoyne]

A couple 600 series recently, and my average is inching toward 175.

[Grover]

Last time out in my candlepin league I threw a 155 + 134 + 121 = 410.

Not bad if I do say so myself.

[PackerFanatic]

Funny, I was just about to come post here too

The quarter format is fun...2nd quarter ends next week and while we got totally smoked in the 1st quarter, before tonight we had a shot at the 2nd quarter title. Unfortunately, the other team bowled out of their butts and 2 on my team did not, so we got smoked.

HOWEVER...I bowled not only my best series ever (578) but I had my best game ever - a 263 in the 3rd game! I started with the first 6 in a row...somehow I found a line I liked that really liked me back. And honestly, I am kinda glad I missed inthe 7th. My heart was jumping out of my chest and I was barely able to stay calm (it wasn't a bad ball actually). Got the spare there and then got 3 more before a split on the 2nd ball on the 10th. Clean game and a 263. Unreal...it's one of those nights that sucks for my team but is awesome for me

[PackerFanatic]

Overall, that should bump my average up pretty good (going in, I was averaging 147). Doing better than I was at the end of last year, just hoping my team can keep picking it up too.

[Glengoyne]

Great game with the 263. My best game ever is a 257. A guy on my team carries a 140 average, last week he opened the night with a 266. My second game I strung a bunch of strikes together, and was actually riding 5 in a row going into the tenth. I started my approach, and I knew something was wrong. It turned out to be my feet WAY out of step. I threw the ball right into the gutter. I picked up the spare, and struck out. My score ended up with a 237. If I hadn't choked that first ball in the tenth, I could have had 30 more pins, which would have had me beating him by 1. I would have loved that, but instead I choked. Ya just gotta pull it back in when it doesn't feel right.

On the bright side, our team took four games from a team with two guys with perennial 230 plus averages.

[Pumpy Tudors]

Great job, PackerFanatic! Great game and nice series on top of it!

My team ended up losing 2 out of 3 games tonight, and we actually dropped in the standings because of it. We finished the first half 3rd out of 10 teams. Still not bad. I only shot 610, but we got absolutely destroyed in the games we lost, so even a 700 wouldn't have saved us. Hell, an 800 might not have even helped us. I'm happy with the way our first half went, though, and I'm looking forward to starting the second half next week.

[k0ruptr]

I bowled a 161 the other night. I figured something out. How I figured it out I don't know but I was averaging 120 ish...I don't know my average now but my last 6 games have been above 140 and last 3 above 150

I know its not good , but I'm proud

[OldGiants]

Originally Posted by k0ruptr

I bowled a 161 the other night. I figured something out. How I figured it out I don't know but I was averaging 120 ish...I don't know my average now but my last 6 games have been above 140 and last 3 above 150

I know its not good , but I'm proud

Congrats!

I've got my average over 130 now after having one game of 175+ for three weeks now. We only bowl two games in this league, so the other game has been ordinary.

We won the first quarter, and we bowl like the pressure is off, so that could explain my good games.

Good luck to all of you!

[lungs]

Started my year off with 158, 133, and 97(!!!!)

The beer got to me in the third game. 123 average last year on some tough lanes. Getting over 200 is very rare for anybody where I bowl. Same guys can go down the street and roll a 600 series at a different lane.

[k0ruptr]

Ugh. Just finished cosmic bowling but I bowled pretty bad. 114,131,134.

[Pumpy Tudors]

I'm about to head off to some cosmic bowling right now. I'm hoping for at least one 200, maybe more!

[k0ruptr]

Watch out for black light Kathy griffin. She can leave splits all night.

[Pumpy Tudors]

love kathy griffin splits

My games were a 204 and a 217. I also put up a 140 at the end, but I was bowling my backwards-through-the-legs shot, so that doesn't really count.

[k0ruptr]

Good job. I need to enlist Kathy more often.

[hoosierdude]

Wife is a library employee and this is the second year the organization has held their Christmas party at a local bowling establishment. This year I went again, we had over half the lanes used, and good time by all... (fun to watch library people cut loose. )

Had two games, (only had two hours to bowl with 5 people), and I had a 86 and a 152 for the night. Hard to see the arrows at the center with the glow bowling on, but, I found the shot for me late in the first game, and then did ok in the second.

[lungs]

Holy fuck, I threw a 207 for my first game tonight. Not bad for a 129 average.

[k0ruptr]

I got wasted at the alley last nite, pretty sure my last game was a 65. I don't remember

[OldGiants]

This week was our league Xmas party. Lots of food and 'No Tap'. If you've never played that, it means a '9' on the first ball counts as a strike.

I can leave the 10 pin all night long, which I did.

I had a 277 and a 231.

Started with a mix of four real strikes and four 10 pin leaves. Then I hooked too much, missed the head pin and left 3 pins. got the spare and missed the 10-pin the rest of the way for 277. Hard to fathom that one 7 can cost you 23 pins off 300, but it does.

[PackerFanatic]

9-pin is so much fun.

edit: and a lot harder than you'd think, haha.

[Danny]

My current average sits at 186, a 10 pin drop off from last season. when I am actually healthy I bowl well, but my sprained wrist and other bowling hand injuries have definitely impacted my bowling. My lifting schedule has a slight negative impact as well. I'd like to get back over 190 at least. It's do able since I have missed a few weeks, I went from 183-186 last week alone.

On the plus side, Darth Vilus (WW posters know him) is averaging a life time high of 203 and has really carried our team so far.

[mtolson]

I have had an up and down year so far. Averaging 208 on one night and 200 on another. I have had a cople 700+ series but just as many low 500's to balance it out lol. Actually, I am just trying to keep pace with my 19 year old daughter. She's averaging 208 in her youth league and just a couple weeks ago had a 768 set !

[RomaGoth]

I went bowling last weekend for the first time in 2 years. It was with a bunch of kids from my son's soccer team. My second game was a 146. Yep, I kicked their ass.

[Danny]

Originally Posted by mtolson

I have had an up and down year so far. Averaging 208 on one night and 200 on another. I have had a cople 700+ series but just as many low 500's to balance it out lol. Actually, I am just trying to keep pace with my 19 year old daughter. She's averaging 208 in her youth league and just a couple weeks ago had a 768 set !

Wow, nice!

[Pumpy Tudors]

I went to cosmic bowling tonight for some practice. My first game, I hit the front 10 strikes, then I left the 10 pin on my 11th pitch. That's a 288 and my highest game ever. I then followed that up with a 264 and a 238 for a series of 792. Too bad it was practice and not in league play. It still brings my confidence way up. It was a good night of bowling.

[Pumpy Tudors]

Dola

It was not a good night as far as the company around me, though. I almost got some drunk people on an adjacent lane kicked out. They were not happy with me, nor were they happy with the bowling center staff. One guy in the group actually threw a ball overhand onto the lane, and he also hit the sweep multiple times because he was too impatient to wait for the pins to reset. I told the staff, and the group stared me down while I was ratting on them. Sorry, but I don't want people disrespecting the staff and damaging the equipment that way. Out of respect for the people who work there and treat me very well, I had to report them. On top of that, my league uses the lane that these assholes were on, and I didn't want my league to end up on a screwed up lane because some drunks couldn't control themselves.

Once the group saw that I was reporting them, they calmed down a little bit. Still, about 5 minutes before the place closed, they finished their last game. The staff immediately shut their lane off to try to get them to leave. Instead of leaving, they waited 2 minutes for me to finish my game, and then they tried to throw a ball on the lane I was vacating. I went to the staff and asked them to shut my lane off, too. That made the group mad again, and they bitched out the kid working at the counter. He told them that he knew they were trying to damage the equipment, and he was not going to allow them to bowl anymore tonight. I mean, the place was closing in 3 minutes anyway. There's no point in letting them throw another shot. They were lucky they got to finish their game because they were thisclose to getting ejected from the building.

[PackerFanatic]

Wow...I hate drunk people like that.

[k0ruptr]

Wow. Just finished my best night ever. 175,223,208. All high scores. Previous high was 161. I found a line and destroyed it for me. The 208 was a better game then the 223 but I finished awful. 6-2 6-2 in 9 & 10. But regardless I'm super happy.

[Glengoyne]

Originally Posted by k0ruptr

Wow. Just finished my best night ever. 175,223,208. All high scores. Previous high was 161. I found a line and destroyed it for me. The 208 was a better game then the 223 but I finished awful. 6-2 6-2 in 9 & 10. But regardless I'm super happy.

That is a great night. Especially three all time highs. When I used to throw a high game when I was averaging in the 120s...nights like 112-237-113.

Congrats....Savor it.

[Glengoyne]

We had our mid season position round tonight. We took three of the four games, the first two very close we won by four and lost by 29(Me and our team captain opened the tenth to drop that one).

I went 190-173-225 for a 588 series. My milestone of the night was my first ever 100% clean game. Meaning that I didn't leave any open frames, and finished with a strike. I've shot clean before, but never managed to pull off a strike with the final ball in the tenth. I can cross that one off of my list.

[k0ruptr]

Awesome! Sounds like we both had great nights!

[k0ruptr]

Id love to have a clean game. Soon I hope

[Danny]

Originally Posted by PackerFanatic

Wow...I hate drunk people like that.

In fairness to the drunk part, they are probably assholes when sober as well.

[Danny]

Originally Posted by Pumpy Tudors

I went to cosmic bowling tonight for some practice. My first game, I hit the front 10 strikes, then I left the 10 pin on my 11th pitch. That's a 288 and my highest game ever. I then followed that up with a 264 and a 238 for a series of 792. Too bad it was practice and not in league play. It still brings my confidence way up. It was a good night of bowling.

Oh man, great bowling. Sucks it wasn't in league play, but it is harder to get in a consistent rhythm over the course of three games in league play due to waiting for 3 other people to bowl before taking your next turn.

[Danny]

I shot another 630 something this past week. I have 6 consecutive 200+ games. My wrist is finally feeling pretty strong and I am back up to 16.5-17mph and my regular snap on the ball. My average is 188 though, hnopefully I can keep crawling my way back up closer to 200.

[Danny]

Oh and Darth Vilus shot another 630 as well. After averaging a lifetime high of 187 or so last season, he has been killing it this season. He is at 203 and has been over 200 since about week 5 (we're like 16 weeks in now).

[Pumpy Tudors]

Is everyone on FOFC hitting their stride at once? I wish we could all get together as a team and just destroy the world.

I was asked to substitute this week at a house I don't normally bowl in. It's a hybrid team/head-to-head league. Basically, each person bowls head-to-head against one opponent for points, but winning as a team also earns points. Of the four people on my team, I was the only one to beat my opponent all three matches. Maybe I should bowl in that house more often, as I have put in 9 games this year, and I am averaging 220 there.

The nice thing about that house is that it tells you the speed of your shot. My "home" house doesn't do that. From bowling in that place in the past, I knew I tended to throw somewhere between 12 and 13 mph. Now I'm at about 14.5 mph. Perhaps the extra speed and improved accuracy have really helped my game there. I'm carrying the back row of pins a lot better than I ever have.

For all the good bowling that's happened lately (207 avg in my own league, 220 avg as a sub, 792 series in practice), I also shot myself in the foot on Sunday. I entered a no-tap doubles tournament. I was terrible. I didn't crack 180 in any of the three games. Then I re-entered with a different partner, and I didn't crack 180 that time either. Six games of no-tap, no scores above 180. Granted, there was some really strange oil pattern on the lanes (they claimed it was a Cheetah, but it was most certainly NOT a Cheetah), and I never figured it out. Still, when does a 200+ bowler put up 6 straight sub-180 no-tap games? Urgh.

[Logan]

I'm begrudgingly going bowling next Friday...Pinstripe Bowling.

[Pumpy Tudors]

Originally Posted by Logan

I'm begrudgingly going bowling next Friday...Pinstripe Bowling.

You're going to roll bowling balls at the Yankees?

[cartman]

The next time you go bowling and do this, don't feel bad, because it happens to the pros as well.

[Pumpy Tudors]

lol

[Alan T]

Finished the first half of the season, and we swept all four points on Thursday position round to jump back up to 4th place for the first half. (We were in 1st for the good part of the season thus far though, but fell to 9th at position night).

I'm back up to a 142 average for the first time in 4 years, looking at bowl.com, my stats show that for the last decade my average has decreased to the point it was last year in the 130s (ugh). This year has been rough as I've missed several weeks due to being overly busy with work and other nights I just am stressed and can't focus right, so actually surprised I've been bowling better than last year.

[Pumpy Tudors]

Originally Posted by Alan T

Finished the first half of the season, and we swept all four points on Thursday position round to jump back up to 4th place for the first half. (We were in 1st for the good part of the season thus far though, but fell to 9th at position night).

I'm back up to a 142 average for the first time in 4 years, looking at bowl.com, my stats show that for the last decade my average has decreased to the point it was last year in the 130s (ugh). This year has been rough as I've missed several weeks due to being overly busy with work and other nights I just am stressed and can't focus right, so actually surprised I've been bowling better than last year.

You may have mentioned this before and I can't remember, but for how many years have you been bowling? I'm just asking because I wonder if maybe you've gone through a period of bowling burnout but are finally getting out of it.

[Alan T]

Originally Posted by Pumpy Tudors

You may have mentioned this before and I can't remember, but for how many years have you been bowling? I'm just asking because I wonder if maybe you've gone through a period of bowling burnout but are finally getting out of it.

Roughly 9-10 years or so. I've always been a casual bowler though, only one league a year, don't bowl in the summer I play softball then instead. I've never taken lessons, don't throw a hook so pretty much rely on picking up spares. Best game ever was in a no-tap tournament where I bowled a 240 (had a perfect game through 7 and then a split in the 8th messed me up).

Not sure if I feel burned out, unless you are talking about something else.. just never really improved too much and actually my average has slowly gone down over the years until finally rebounding a little bit this year. Not back up to where I used to be at 150+ though.

[Pumpy Tudors]

Originally Posted by Alan T

Roughly 9-10 years or so. I've always been a casual bowler though, only one league a year, don't bowl in the summer I play softball then instead. I've never taken lessons, don't throw a hook so pretty much rely on picking up spares. Best game ever was in a no-tap tournament where I bowled a 240 (had a perfect game through 7 and then a split in the 8th messed me up).

Not sure if I feel burned out, unless you are talking about something else.. just never really improved too much and actually my average has slowly gone down over the years until finally rebounding a little bit this year. Not back up to where I used to be at 150+ though.

Yeah, I thought you might have been feeling burned out over the past couple of years which is why your average could drop. Because I bowl constantly, I hit these patches where I feel burned out and don't bowl my best. For me, the burnout could happen at anytime - beginning, middle, or end of season - because I never stop.

Nothing wrong with a 130, 140, or 150 average, especially if you're having fun.

[TCY Junkie]

Originally Posted by Pumpy Tudors

Nothing wrong with a 130, 140, or 150 average, especially if you're having fun.

I use a ball over 35 years old. My dad used to use a ball with no hook in it also but he changed. I don't really care about upgrading just as long as I can beat my dad still.

I enjoy the close games with my dad, about 15 percent of the time he beats me. I want to beat him every time but want competitive games with him.

[Kodos]

Figured Pumpy should know this. If you click on the link, you'll get to see a badass "pins on fire" picture.

YaleNews | Bowlers strike with a hot hand, too

Bowlers strike with a hot hand, too

By Helen Dodson
January 12, 2012

Is the so-called “hot hand” phenomenon in sports a reality or just an illusion based on misperception of random sequences? For the second time in recent months, a Yale study supports the notion that it is real. The study appears online in the journal PLoS One.

The “hot hand” phenomenon refers to the belief that an athlete is more likely to make successful shots if the previous shots were successful. But until recently, there was no scientific evidence to support the existence of this phenomenon.

Last October, Gur Yaari, computational biologist at Yale School of Medicine, and colleague Shmuel Eisenmann demonstrated the existence of the phenomenon in basketball. They showed that there was a significant increase in basketball players’ chances of hitting the second free throw in a two-shot series compared to the first one, and that the probability of hitting the second shot is greater following a hit than a miss. It was unclear, however, whether there was a cause and effect (causal) connection between the result of one shot and the next.

In a new study, Yaari and colleague Gil David of the Yale Department of Mathematics showed that the “hot hand” phenomenon exists among bowlers as well. They also found evidence that the phenomenon is not due to a causal feedback mechanism, commonly referred to as “success breeds success,” but is a consequence of large fluctuations in player performances over time that result in some bad games and some very good games.

The researchers analyzed large amounts of data from the Professional Bowling Association, studying the results from available records of the top 100 players.

The performances of individual players fluctuated significantly. Researchers noted that within each game successes (strikes) and failures (non-strikes) were not necessarily clustered together, but spread out uniformly.

They found that although the result of one frame does not directly influence the next (a strike does not “cause” another strike and a miss does not “cause” another miss), it was clear that getting strikes in one game made it more likely that a player would get more strikes in that game – hence the presence of the “hot hand” phenomenon.

Researchers showed that such correlations in good and bad games can be used to improve the prediction power of the last frames in a game based on the scores in the beginning.

“The observed correlation allows us to improve our ability to predict the result of the last frames of a game based on the series of preceding frames,” Yaari explained. “The fact that a player had good results in the first eight frames of a game indicates that the probability of bowling a strike in the last two frames will be higher.”

So what causes the “hot hand” phenomenon? The Yale team said there is more research to be done.

“Our study shows that a player's performance is not affected by the results of previous trials, but rather by other factors,” Yaari said. “It shows that in contrast to previous belief, athlete's results could not be explained by pure random independent process. This opens the door for future studies addressing the question of what really cause athletes to perform better and how could they use this kind of knowledge to improve their performance.”

Citation: PLoS One

[JediKooter]

After the way I bowled last night, good thing they didn't use me in that study.