Bowled last weekend and after reading some of the things here and hearing personally from bowlers in my area, I was convinced that we would face tough conditions much like last year. Before we took the lanes at both places we were told the ball was not going to hook much. My were we surprised! Both houses played well from about the 7-9 board for us down and in guys and we saw solid movement on the backend, We didn't shoot super high scores but shot some decent numbers that won a good amount of bracket money. I did not bowl as well as I hoped to. Developed some timing issues due to what I found was slippery approaches. Not too much slide at the end, but loss of traction on early steps. Just couldn't find my way out of the timing problems and shot marginal scores. On a good note, I won a Hammer First Blood in the ball giveaway drawings on a $10 investment.