Here's my last two years bowling league -- any league, except PBAX:

1) Start the night with a idiot-proof shot to the pocket. About 10 boards of area. It's dumb fun, but fun nonetheless. Condition usually holds up until about the third frame of the first game, give or take five frames depending on who else is playing your area.

2) First eight or so frames of game 1 go by without much fuss; around the ninth frame, your ball wiggles up a half-board and you trip the 4. Note: This will be your one and only warning to move.

3) By the time the second game gets started, you are hunting for something new. At my house, we don't have a drastic wall or a lot of hold inside to begin with, so moving left quickly turns into the law of diminishing returns: not enough in the middle to get the ball to transfer through, but too much on the outside to bank it off. Typically, this is when guys with multiple balls begin to de-shell.

4) If you're lucky enough to catch a good pair or if the pattern holds up, you're good. Otherwise, you're good until about the second frame of the third game, and then you run out of left. Now it's back to the right, playing up the very outside, but without any hold area and you almost have to be Norm Duke for a day to make it work. Meanwhile, the one lefty on your pair hasn't moved since Halloween.

So typically, I'm shooting a high game, followed by a low game, followed by a grab bag in the third game. It could be very high, very low or somewhere in between. Tonight it was in between because I started quickly and then had a twofold problem of (a) no hold area and (b) one lane's 1-5 boards were drastically different from the other's and I didn't figure out my equipment until it was too late.

Good thing I like a challenge. (g)

Jess