#funnel

There has always been too much of a good thing.  Some house shots are so over under that they are tough.  I remember 15 years ago bowling a summer league on the animal patterns.  The cheetah played easier thsn the regular house shot because it was a little more tapered.   A couple of the challenge patterns are easier for me than many house shots.

Quote from: avabob on September 08, 2019, 10:02:00 PM

There has always been too much of a good thing.  Some house shots are so over under that they are tough.  I remember 15 years ago bowling a summer league on the animal patterns.  The cheetah played easier thsn the regular house shot because it was a little more tapered.   A couple of the challenge patterns are easier for me than many house shots.

This is why I despise when people try to say if you don't bowl on sport you suck (more or less).  Pros can average more on Cheetah than a house shot.  House shots can be difficult for some people because of the huge cliff.

+1. I find USBC White patterns to be more blended and easier to bowl on than most house shots.

Talk about super cliffed, my word. Instant bounce right of target and the ball backs up left of target, who would want to bowl on this?

Let me guess.... The first 2 words of this center start with "Brunswick Zone"?

Surprisingly no, they're a local chain. But whoever's in charge of mine thought this was a good idea.   
I bet the AMFs around aren't as bad, actually.

Talk about super cliffed, my word. Instant bounce right of target and the ball backs up left of target, who would want to bowl on this?

Really don't want to but still have 30some weeks to go 

The skills required to bowl on a houseshot are not the same as sport shot.

A year ago I switched to bowling with no thumb. Practiced a lot (mostly on burned up houseshot with plastic or weak  urethane) for 9 months and then joined 2 sport shot leagues in the summer. It was a steep learning curve, but I finished season averaging in 170's in both leagues, but more importantly, easily in the 180's by the end with huge improvement.

Then entered a 8 game house shot tournament.

I was ok for 2 games, and then after was a mess, has two games in the 140's while everyone else was over 200 for each game. The tournament winner averaged like 249.

What happened was I thought I could go in with my sport shot arsenal and make adjustments off that. That is mostly non-reactives (I think a better term than urethane) and keeping ball in front of me for control. And with my almost 400 rev rate and about 3 degrees of axis tilt, my Fever Pitch and Covert Tank can look like reactive the way they hook.

Good for 2 games. Then went over to next pair. Ball hooked significantly more. everyone else burned up the front. My non-reactive stuff wouldn't get through. Unless I moved deep inside. More than other people. Then too much oil. But then I would have had to been in front of ball return and lofting gutter - which I can't do as only been bowling this way for 1 year, so I can't get that deep when playing the right side lane.

I needed to bring reactive and move in deeper than everyone else, but didn't even take the right balls with me, b/c over the summer, I really didn't need reactive.

So I had 6 games on extreme under-over house shot all between 144 and 190.

As of now, there are some sport shot tournaments coming up. Honestly, I can enter those where like 200 avg or less, might make cut for match play, and even if I have a bad game I can make it up. I practiced all summer and different patterns and and no problem doing 180 plus. So I feel if I bowling good I have a chance.

On house shot tournament have to avg. 230 just to feel like keeping up with the pace while chucking the ball from 40th board out to 5.

I'm not bowling house shot anymore. I'm going to vote with my dollars. I'm not interested in bowling league, throwing some 220's or whatever I'd avg. I'd rather work on my game and learn how to compete in sport shot tournaments (which there are now much more of)  and sport shot leagues in summer.

From a certain perspective am I abandoning house shot b/c my game isn't as good for it compared to others - well sort of. But I love sport shot bowling. It's fun and challenging and I need to learn different skills, play angles, learning lane adjustments.
House shot is just move left and chuck it right. 

But getting to the point - is house shot a different skill than sport - yes.
Does that make one better than another? Is it more of an accomplishment to avg 210 and win on sport shot than win with 250 on house? I guess that is a matter of opinion.

ok, end of rant

Quote from: avabob on September 09, 2019, 12:34:58 PM

Here is another point.  A lot of people think a house shot is a green light to throw the ball all over the place and still score.  Not so.  What a house shot does is allow a player to be very one dimensional if they can execute consistently.  When I was young, a lont time ago, most house shots were very playable even with hard pladtic or rubber balls.  However every house shot was different
  Some played easy off the corner.   Some played great inside 15 board.   Some were tough and you had to know how to square up because the balls didnt blow a hole in the pattern as quickly as today. 

If you had the opportunity to bowl in multiple house it was possible to develop the diversity that can only be found today on multiple sport patterns of different lengths

This is where I feel we aren't taking advantage of technology in the correct way with new machines and oils. My personal opinion is in regards to a house shot, a great house shot is a pattern that has some wiggle room for imperfect shots, but has a good look for all styles of bowlers. The perfect house shot has a shim for guys that like to play out, and also people with a little less rev rate. It's a pattern that has enough in the middle for guys that have some hand, and need to boom it. The shot also yields consistent scores, not the 230, 279, 180 pattern. It might be a 230 average, but I would much rather shoot 220, 240, 230. The caveat is, people may not average 240 for the year, but can have nights that they average 250 because they bowl great ,and when they shoot an award score, it feels like an accomplishment.

Seems that we have gone to a place with house conditions that all that is really concerning is the end scoring pace, instead of trying to be fair to all. Over walled isn't fair for all.

My normal game doesn't like this at all. Have a couple things to try still. (especially now I know it's 50 feet)
Wonder what ratios were like in the mid-90s, by the way. I'd prefer that. (aka when I was last bowling regularly as a teen  )
Regardless, in a month it may not matter due to circumstances beyond my control anyway.