Okay, ladies and gentlemen, I'm about two weeks away from heading to El Paso for the Open Championships. At this point, I have a pretty good idea as to the six balls that will be making the trip with me; nevertheless, I always like to hear what you fine folks have to say.

I have two 3-ball rollers that will travel, so the arsenal will be 5 plus a plastic spare ball. Here are my options:

Mastermind
Mastermind Intellect
Mastermind Genius
DV8 Brutal Nightmare
Melee Cross
Melee
Melee Jab
Strike King

My initial thought is to go as follows:

Mastermind (2000)
Intellect (1500)
Melee Cross (500/2000)
Melee (Box - maybe a touch of the shine knocked off)
Melee Jab (2000 plus polish)
T-Zone

That would mean leaving out the Genius, Brutal Nightmare, and Strike King. Any thoughts on these options - before you say it, yes, I know it's hard to truly make suggestions without having seen me bowl. This is more just taking a stab stuff. 

I like it, Gene. I'm betting that Cross will be in your hand lots...

I bowl next week and plan on taking the:

Melee Cross @ 1500 - 2000
Melee Jab @ 3000ish
Soul 
Strike King
Urethane Groove spare ball


I may throw the Brute in, but not quite sure on which surface yet...

Maybe a dead cross road....it works well off the spot for me when there is much back end, idk why

Chris,

I bowl team the 29th @ 5:00 and Doubles/Singles the 30th @ 9:00 am.

If you're around introduce yourself to me. It's nice to put names and faces together.

As I've watched others bowl it looks like controlling the last 1/3 of the lane is the real challenge, which is why I'm taking stuff that will hopefully help me do that.  I have not practiced on the patterns, and won't have time to before I leave, so you have any insight/experience I'd love to hear it.

right now from reports it seems the bad intentions and game breaker 2's are what's winning events right now. That's what vermilyeas group mostly used along with rob gotchall. The other guys on there teams reported using iq tour solid and iq tour nano. Obviously the theme this year is solid rolling bowling balls with surface. Also symmetrical is heavily outweighing asymmetrical. And pin down is being used more than pin up. I would think most people's first ball out to get a good idea would be a pin down solid symmetrical with surface between 1000-2000 and then go from there.

i would go with the melees, intellect and genius. i think the mastermind and intellect overlap.

I just returned home from bowling earlier this week.  Our bowlers had the best reaction from symmetrical balls with a lot of surface.  A surface of 2000 or lower is best.