Going to the Hoinke the last weekend of Aug.  Anyone been there lately?  I think they are putting down a house pattern, but not sure.   Looked at the house web site and all they say is that they have 68 lanes of aoutomatic scoring.  Not sure if it is Wood or Synthetic.  Not sure about the pattern.  Can anyone shed some light on the condtions based on experience?  Thanks.

I bowled it in April and it is defiantly not a house shot.  Hooks a lot in the middle and dont go outside of 5 it is dead out there.  Every pairs seems to play a little different when you move.  Have fun I bowled 20 games and averaged 202 for all 20 including my 5 split game.

Going to the Hoinke the last weekend of Aug.  Anyone been there lately?  I think they are putting down a house pattern, but not sure.   Looked at the house web site and all they say is that they have 68 lanes of aoutomatic scoring.  Not sure if it is Wood or Synthetic.  Not sure about the pattern.  Can anyone shed some light on the condtions based on experience?  Thanks.

I went at the end of June.  I talked to the guys at the desk.  Last year they refused to say anything about the pattern.  What I was told this year is that there is a 3/1 ratio, and that 10 and out is flat, and 10 to 30 is flat.  I think it is around 40 feet. 

It isn't a house shot, but it isn't totally flat either.  I got to practice on a fresh pair the night before I bowled.  Once I got lined up I had a little room to miss.  If I got it to within a 3 board area at my breakpoint I was good.  Since you have to move a pair to the right every game, you really can't carve out a shot.

Unlike last year, I really didn't have to move much.  I pretty much played the same area most of the time.  I shot just under 2000 for 10 games, and only had problems at the end of the 4 game singles.

The approaches were tacky for me, and in general be careful when you walk around or you will find food and other miscellaneous debris on the bottom of your shoes.

They only ran brackets on the weekend (at least that is what I was told).  We bowled Fri/Sat, so that stunk.  I couldn't believe they don't run brackets during the week because that is just easy money for whoever is running it.  Yeah, there are some people who are really a headache, but every bracket gives the guy running it a share of the money.  Not to get personal, but the guy running it was an ***.

What is a bit of a sham is that you can re-enter ... although I am not sure how many times.  People from the area can practice on the shot all year and go into the tournament with a huge advantage. 

I hope this helps.

Drew

So, as an old tweener, I shouldn't expect to avg 230.  3 to 1 is not fun to bowl on.  Wish me luck.  We bowl Sat-Sun but may bowl a Singles set on Fri Night.  I am in Virginia, so this may be my only trip ever to the Hoinke.

I'm in VA as well.  Drove up.  Around 7-8 hours.  230 might be a bit unrealistic by my standards.  Shoot for even, and make your spares, and maybe you do even better than that.  I wish they had updated standings on-line, but ... no.

I will say that I do like that they use a 3 year composite average.  It didn't matter for me, but I think it helps keep the bagging down a little bit.

The shot ate my lunch this year.  I had a few runs here and there, but splits killed most of my games.  I can verify that is is a 3/1 pattern, and 5 is OOB.  I had some looks inside, and some looks outside, it just depended on where people in front of me were playing.  But you have to be accurate at the breakpoint.  You won't need anything super strong, there is a bunch of hook on the back.  The guys that I saw that were doing well generally had less hand and could stay straight for longer.  Nobody on our squad killed it though, and we had a couple of past champions (doubles) bowling with us.  If you shoot average I would consider that a win.

dmonroe, sorry to hear you had a bit of a disappointing experience. It just sometimes happens that no one signs up for certain squads. The tournament is ran like clock work, squad timing at least. Every Friday through Sunday the tournament runs the same squads, week in and week out. You kind of just got unlucky that no one else didn't want to bowl then. The last time I was there, it was a full squad.