In my original post, I didn't mean specifically in the open tournament, I meant more in general.

Do you just look at a tournament flyer and said, cool, I'm bowling?

Do you arrive at a tournament with $200 for brackets and just enter, or do you walk in with your $200 and notice that the quality of bowler is a bit better than expected and maybe only enter $100 worth.

For example here in north Texas, there's a tournament in Tulsa called the GTO (Greater Tulsa Open) that lots of bowlers make the trip for.  On the team portion of the tournament, there can be 300-500 brackets on a squad.  There were 501 last year on the squad before mine.  As you walk in, you discover DJ Archer is bowling that squad.  Do you enter as many as you planned or do you back off?  For the record.  He was in all 501, made 500 finals, and won them all.

In that case, yes, I enter, pay my bracket money and let it ride for good or bad.

Historically I have put 500-700 in brackets at nationals because I felt I had a 75% chance of making money in that field.  Local tournaments, if I enter the tournament, which I always do in scratch events, I often don't max out the brackets.  Partly if we are on a house shot I consider it more of a crap shoot, and unlike nationals the real money is in the regular prize fund. 

As a side note, it is much harder to make good money in nationals brackets than it was a few years ago.  Also as a 68 year old guy, I am usually more interested in the senior side.  The interesting thing is that it is often as tough to make money in senior brackets as in regular.  Also, the low cash score in the senior singles and all events has been higher the last two seasons than in the regular division in Reno.  I didn't bowl El Paso, so not sure about it 

Hey Pinbuster ,

sent you a PM.