We modified our Red/White/Blue league -- now it's a White/Blue/Blue+ league. That last trimester is going to be interesting. I guess they're going to modify the pattern to make it harder.

White pattern we used last night was either 38 or 39 feet. I was told it was 39 but the graph looked like 38.

Either way, we had some difficulty on this pattern as a group, for the most part. Some people -- the better bowlers who can bowl on anything -- did as well as they usually would on the house shot. The rest of the league was off by 15 pins at the very least. I had a game under 150 and I wasn't the lowest score of the night.

But the other two games were in the 190s. It's all about managing the backend. I guess the taper on this thing either doesn't exist, or it's pretty short, because as soon as anything got off the end of the pattern it made a huge left turn.

My two best looks of the night were to take something with a lot of surface (i.e., 900Global Break S-75) and go hard and straight up somewhere between 5-10, or plastic. Yes, plastic. My high game of the night was rolled with a Lane #1 XXXL Starburst after the heads caught on fire.

I was more than a bit surprised that weak resin equipment never worked for me. Even on the fresh, there was so much friction at the end of the pattern that the ball just took off. Most people who were having success, particularly late, were doing it with older, used-up equipment or plastic.

I thought I was going to be forced more to the outside part of the lane and go straighter, given the higher oil volume, but that only worked with the plastic ball. The Break S-75 worked well out there for about 6 or 7 frames, but then the oil disappeared.

Going deeper, I guess, is what I should have done, but there was no hold area. Miss it just a little left and you could kiss it goodbye.

Honestly, this reminded me a lot of the last time I played PBA Chameleon, except with better recovery if you happened to miss outside.

Jess