Our PBA league started last night, and it's not really a PBA league, it's more of a difficult shot league.  We started on WTBA Paris, which I really hate, but it isn't that tough of a shot unless you have a lot of traffic on it.  This is a house that has a lot of trouble with pinspots, had trouble throughout the winter, and appears as if it won't change.  On the right lane, the 3 pin was a full board left, and the headpin was half a board right.  On the left lane, the 2 pin was half a board right and the 4 pin was a full board left.  I left 9 10 pins and 4 mixer 7s.  7 of the 10s were on the right lane, and all 4 of the 7s were on the left lane.  I only had 5 shots all night long that weren't a 9 count or a strike. 

Now I realize sometimes people will blame carry for their lack of scoring, and sometimes it's a factor, but when all the pins are on spot, I don't put too much stock into it, because you should be able to do something to adjust.  I started out playing about 32-12 with my Purple Taboo, and the line was perfect, but I couldn't get the 10 out on the right lane because of the 3 pin being off spot.  So I had to pull out my Yellow Misfit and play about 20-7 and come up the back of it to try and get a little higher in the pocket, which really isn't a good way to attack this pattern, but it's what I had to do.  I only had one mixer on the left lane that carried because with the 2 and 4 pins being off spot, they would just kind of weakly and awkwardly fall, and of course the 7s started standing up just as soon as I started getting the 10 out on the right lane. 

So here's the story, if I carry all of them, I'm in the 730s or 740s.  If I carry half of them, I'm around 675.  The reality was 560, because I did have a few opens, but of the 15 single pins I left, I picked up 14 of them, so spares kept my head above water.  Here's the deal though, I'm a realist, and I'm as objective as humanly possible, because if you don't correctly identify a problem, you can't fix it, and if you constantly blame everything else to either save your pride or deflect blame, you'll never get any better.  But sometimes it's really not you, and last night, it wasn't my fault.  I threw about 6 or 7 bad shots, a couple average ones, most were good shots, and about 6 or 7 were great shots.  Guess we'll just attack the pattern again next week (2 week rotation for all patterns) and hope the pins are on spot and see what happens then. 

Hey Gizmo,

Yours is NOT an excuse, the reality is faulty pin spotting period..

I'm sure others experienced the same dramas at some point in their league, I don't know what kind of league it was, but I would have made management put u on another pair, or fix the problem asap, or pack up, ask for a refund, and go home!!
 , but to continue all night with off spotted pins is kinda like Russian Roulette, and NOT a true indicator of how u bowled that league night, regardless of how high the scoring was that night..

No doubt.  Should have demanded that the mechanic get out there and fix the broken bolts and/or wheels in the cups of the pin setter.  Ten minute job.  Of all the things you can't control that you beef about, here is something that was within your control and you didn't act. 

Then you write a post about telling why you didn't score.  I'll take it on faith that it was indeed the pinspotting and you didn't just play the lanes correctly.  As far fetched as that concept might be.   

Well here's the deal . . the turnout for this league absolutely blows chunks.  We have a guy that throws a backup ball, several people that average 180 on a house shot, and the rest are bowling on a tough shot for the very first time.  We very literally have 9 people bowling this league.  I wasn't going to be a total douche and hold up things and make them fix the pinspots right then and there, but I DID report it.  But you're right, I didn't make them fix it right away. 

And like I said, the patterns are on a two week rotation, so we'll see how next week goes.  At the same time, I have reported bad pinspots since August, and all it's really done is gotten the mechanic pissy with me.  There's a very small amount of money in this league, so I may just lie low for the summer, but it was a pretty big problem over the winter, cost some people some money, so if I have to start filing official complaints with the league next year, I'll be all over that. 

But again, like I said, horrific turnout, a pittance of money, hence why I'm just stating a few things rather than getting on a soapbox and ranting. 

NINE people?  You know what you have to do?  Start a Kegel Challenge Pattern league.  You don't think the patterns are the difficult when you look at the graphs but you literally have averages 15 to 20 pins different than a THS.  Our Sunday league bowls on it and everybody accepts the challenge.  We have bowlers like Fred Bauss III, Joe Krajenke, Mark Moore, some of the top bowlers in Detroit and nobody bitches about their averages being down.  The league stays competitive because the conditions are the great equalizer (long with team avg hcp of 90% of diff from 900).  Get them bowling on that, and break them in on a tougher shot gradually.  You'll build a league that you'll be proud to bowl in.   

You're absolutely right . . but a big problem is that a lot of the "big guns" in the city don't want to bowl in the summer, and that's the only time something like this is offered.  However, when the turnout looks like this for a summer league where we have the whole house available if we want it and nobody shows up, the center has no incentive to offer it during the winter.  Also, one of the biggest problems is that we have something called "Top Ten" here, and it's a tournament with NO PAYOUT that just takes the top 10 composite averages of a minimum one league in two different bowling centers and 2/3rds of those leagues completed, and there's a tournament before the season starts in August.  It's supposed to be this great prestigious thing, and quite a few people actually make it a point to try to make themselves eligible.  But again, like I said, NO PAYOUT.  So you can imagine that when faced with bowling on a shot that will hurt their "top ten average," a lot of people don't go for that.  And we have even said before that the sport average wouldn't be factored in, but then they say, "So I already have to bowl one league in two different houses for top ten, then you want me to bowl a third on a tough shot? Don't think so."  I've suggested to our scratch league that we bowl on a tougher shot, but I always hear, "Well, we're supposed to be the best bowlers in town, we have to shoot big numbers to build the league."  But actually those big numbers are driving people away, because they don't think they can compete, so they don't try.  Whereas, if we made the shot tougher, the scores would get lower, and people might give it a shot.  Doing all I can, this city is just really resistant to stuff, and you wouldn't think they would be.  Rick Benoit lives here, his brother Bob (PBA champion, with a 300 on tv in the championship round) does, we've got the only guy in the history of the USBC Open Championships to shoot back to back 300s, one of our houses hosted a US Open in the 80's, and a womens US Open, that proprieter is in the USBC Hall of Fame, Chris Barnes is originally from here, the pro shop I work at now was once owned and ran by current Hammer brand manager Jeff Ussery, Rhino Page lived and bowled here while he was going to KU, current WSU bowler and Junior Team USA member Kelsey Muther was born and raised here, etc.  Yeah I know I'm dropping a lot of names here, but you would think with all these people involved that something would get going, but even Rick Benoit has had trouble getting support here.  I've worked in the pro shop for 7 years, bowled a minimum of 2 leagues a year for the past decade, I've participated in lane certification for the last several years and am actually going to take control of it this year, and I've joined our local association board.  I'm as involved as humanly possible aside from making it all a full time job. 

I'll try to talk to some people and see if we can get something going, the owner of the pro shop chain I work for is also part owner of the center it's located in, so there's a possibility there, but it could be rough . . thanks for the suggestion, I think that would be a better route to go than saying the trigger words "sport shot" or "PBA Exp" league. 

Easy to see, then easy to figure out by how the pin carry is.  Real easy to see if it's the head pin, harder on others.  Front to back I don't believe happens that much due to design of pin cups on the setter.     

Well, I have 20/10 vision for one, and for two, like I said, I do lane certification every year, so when I get a look from both the approach and right up there on the deck, you develop a relationship, and like LGD and Gaz said, it's easy to see lateral displacement, either compared to pins in front of or behind, or just the general spacing.  Also I inspect the rack before I even pick up my ball, and if you actually take the time to eyeball the hell out of it, you might be surprised at what you find.  Also, like LGD said, if you throw a ball so many times and pay attention to how it hits and where the pins normally deflect to, if you're familiar enough with your shot, you can tell what should carry and what shouldn't, and also what he said about the design of the pinsetters.  If you hit high flush and leave a flat 10, probably a good indication your 3 pin is deep.  Also, depending on how good the lighting is at your center, you can tell differences in shading if a pin is deep or forward.  We have white flourescent bulbs in the front, and if a 3 pin is deep, it will be darker than the 2 pin, and vice versa, works for the 4 and 6 and 1 and 10 too.  It would be impossible to tell if the 5, 8, or 9 were forward or deep, but even if your vision isn't that great, lateral moves aren't that hard to see if you really take a good look at your pins before you throw the ball.

Yeah you can call me anal if that bugs me, but it's little stuff like that that will add pins to your average.  If a simple rerack is the difference between 279 and 300, I'm gonna make sure I check those spots.  If I miss a shot, I miss a shot, but for something that simply fixed, I'm gonna pay attention.