Here's a link to the pattern
http://bowlingknowledge.info/images/stories/pure_evil_original.pdfThe pattern was the Pure Evil pattern and according to the tournament director was the hardest of the Slowinski patterns. I watched the first squad to see how they played, and everyone was trying to play right of 3rd arrow and trying to get the ball to recover in the out of bounds. A lot of low scores the first squad, they had a practice pair set up, so off I went to dial it in.
I bowled the second squad and shot 578, had a great look throwing the Aftermath at 1500, but just couldn't get the breaks and borderline cut. I was playing deep, standing left foot on 40, 23/24 at the arrows, and about 11/12 at the breakpoint. They were only taking the top two of each squad along with high scratch, I was high scratch at that point but felt the score wouldn't hold up, so I bowled the third squad.
Third squad I shoot games of 224, 202, 229 for a 655 set, and it put me at the top of the leader board, heading into the semi's. In the semi's the lanes had started to dry up in the middle, but still had plenty of out of bounds outside 10. So I made a ball change to the Dominion, 65°x3 3/8"x25° 2000w/polish. I was able to stand in the same spot and play the same line as I was with the Aftermath. I struggled to shoot 184 the first game, than I came back with a 214 in game two.
I had a nice run going into the 10th the third game, and a strike in the tenth would have put me in the #1 seed. I stoned a 10pin, and yes, this dummy forgot his spare ball, so I struggled with right side spares, this one included. Missed it for a 218 game and ended up being the 3rd seed. This pair was the toughest, with the right lane being extremely dry in the middle and still had the out of bounds. What are the odds of this pair being picked for the finals.....not too high, as it was chosen.
I knew I was going to have to get deeper on this pair for the finals, and I ended up having to sit on the ball return on the right lane, and a 5 & 2 move left on the left lane. I knew the scores were gonna be low and didn't have enough hdcp to help, everyone else in the finals had 20+ pins on me. I lose 201 to 228 finished 4th, cashed and made a profit.
Overall me and my buddies had a great time
