This is the one PBA Experience league pattern I've never been able to figure out.  Considering I have a lower rev rate, this is surprising.  However, I always struggle to get any area since the lanes change so quickly and constantly.

In practice, I was playing about 2-3 at the breakpoint, and by the end of the 4th game I had started pointing the ball toward the headpin and was playing around 8 at the breakpoint.  No matter what line I played, the slightest miss right was a 2-4-8-10 or a washout, and the slighest miss left was a 6-7-10.

Once I settled into an area, the ball would hook back to the pocket for about two, maybe three frames tops, then it would start to blow past the breakpoint and never make it back to the headpin.  I threw a shot that left a 2-4-8-10 at one point, and my buddy who watched me release that shot was dumbfounded -- he expected it to be high-flush after the past two shots I had thrown that looked very similar off my hand.  I was similarly confused!

So, I tried throwing everything from strong equipment with a dull surface to weak equipment with a polished surface, and they all gave me the same results: not enough midlane, and the ball just squirted after two or three frames.  The best look I had all night was throwing my plastic ball directly up the 10 board, but the carrydown got so bad after just five frames that I had a nasty over/under look with it even!

Does anyone have any recommendations how to attack a heavier-volume Cheetah pattern to create some miss room and some predictability?

Edit -- and for comparison's sake, I shot between 760 and 800 for 4 games almost every week on the Shark, the Scorpion, and the Chameleon (except for the handful of weeks when I simply could not execute, those days were not so pretty).  I shot a 602 last night on the Cheetah.  That's probably the lowest four-game block I've had in 10 years on any condition!

Edited on 7/24/2009 7:17 AM

Edited on 7/30/2009 8:49 PM