when using a 100% difference for handicap, it's not about the scratch score, it comes down to pins over and under average for everyone

what are they using for entering averages? after a few weeks real averages should come into play and you will see the scores closer to 230 across the board

every system can be sandbagged

In a handicap league you can't give away the pocket or miss spares at all if you're averaging the base number. You're bowling scratch in a handicap league.

You'll lose every time you bowl 220-250 if a 160 bowler throws a game in the 180s. Like the people said before me, it's about pins under/over average

There was a time where I had a problem with 100% or even 90% handicap. I've got to the point where it just doesn't matter.
 
Part of the reason is that I almost exclusively bowl scratch. I win or lose based on my own performance, and don't have to worry about pins given to others.
 
But when I do get roped into bowling handicap, I've found over time that in most cases, even 100% doesn't make much difference. Most adult recreational bowlers are what they are, and vary little in their average from year-to-year. They don't practice, they don't improve, and few are capable of exploiting the 100% scenario.
 
Just last week I decided to join an upcoming senior daytime league with my mom to spend more time with her. The league has a 100% of 220 for their handicap. I called the league President to tell her I was going to sign up, and suggested she change the handicap to 100% of 230. I don't want handicap working in favor of my 225+ average, and certainly don't want any negative perceptions by others in the league. She appreciated the thought, but said the rules had already been voted on, and if necessary, can be revisited in the middle of the season. I'll certainly push the issue if I bowl well.
 
The bottom line is to chill and go with the situation. Bowl scratch if you want to eliminate the stress of handicap schemes.

This is why I avoid bowling anything handicap if I can. There's a scratch sport league near me I might join, and sweepers that are scratch. I try not to do ABT because I can sniff a bagger a mile away, and it's not good for my blood pressure. I start having a mild bout of touriettes.

I would avoid 100% handicap leagues.  This league is catering to the average joe bowler and at 230 you are out of place.   Go scratch. 

We consistently have posts about this.  And here is the reality.  Someone must lose.  In every league/tournament, you must have donators. 

No one I know of joins a league to lose it.  You join the league thinking you have a chance to win it. 

As others have posted, over the long 30+ week season, the higher average bowler or team will win MOST of the time.  But sometimes you lose.  And yet you are here posting that the HDCP % is too high because you lost.  Yet you are fine if the lower average bowler loses every year.  You seem to think it is ok and acceptable for that lower average bowler to play in the league and lose every year.

I can only speak for me.  If I was only a team that constantly finished in the bottom of the league for 2-3 years in a row, I am either changing teams or quitting the league.

There is a big money: $80,000 prize fund league where I bowl.  Last year there was 37 teams in the league.  38 the year prior.  This will be the 3rd year since raising the weekly fee to $30.  And what is happening?  8-10 teams are quitting because they are tired of being donators in the league.  Both years since the increase in fees which led to the big prize, the same 10-12 teams are battling for the top spots.  The league is HDCP but most teams get less than 10 pins a game as the top teams are 3 big averages.

No one wants to be a donator, yet the posts here seem to indicate that the high average bowlers expect the lower averages to just be a donator and accept it.

We consistently have posts about this.  And here is the reality.  Someone must lose.  In every league/tournament, you must have donators. 

No one I know of joins a league to lose it.  You join the league thinking you have a chance to win it. 

As others have posted, over the long 30+ week season, the higher average bowler or team will win MOST of the time.

 
It really depends on the demographic of the handicap league you're in. If it's a league that regularly attracts younger bowlers who want to get better and do throughout the season, the team with higher average bowlers will not win most of the time. This was the profile of the last handicap league I was in. Even though my team was regularly the highest average team, we never finished higher than the middle.
 
On the other hand, if the higher average team is in a league of mostly mature bowlers who have peaked, they have a really good chance of winning over the long haul. It's never easy finding the happy medium.

OK, Someone please explain your thinking here.

For even numbers sake, lets say we have a 20 team league where 10 teams are the "high" average teams and all average within 20 pins (5 pins per bowler) of each other and the other ten are low average teams that are 75 pins or worse below the high average teams.

Only 1 team gets to win the league.  So in 5 years, 5 out of the 10 high average teams have won the league, and every team in the high group has a couple top 5 finishes.  That assumes that none of the low teams ever has a hot year and sneaks into the top 10.

Explain to me why the bottom 10 teams even bother to bowl the league?

If you are going to set the rules so that the bottom teams have no realistic shot, why do you expect them to bowl.

I don't want to hear well they need to improve etc.  The standard crap us high average bowlers say.

It is just amazing that because they are so good, high average bowlers believe that low average teams shall bowl leagues against them and just donate.

Yet, those same bowlers will bitch and moan, or quit if all of a sudden a team of 240 averages joins their league and starts dominating.

Can you please explain it to me?