The Orleans, Gold Coast, Sunset Station, Redrock Station, and South Point where be where you want to spend most of your time. Texas Station as well. Since Sunset Lanes became Wildfire Lanes, that place went downhill. It was a really nice 40 lane house that had the most competitive league in the city, in terms of regular league and sports/tough shot league. Now it is down to 20 lanes, a pool and dart board hall, and casino.

You'll find a lot of tournaments down there. The True Amateur Challenge tournaments are always a blast. You'll find PBAX leagues and sport condition leagues all over as well.

Get a feel for all of the alleys there: Those mentioned above, plus Suncoast, Sam's Town, and if you're up for the drive, Riverside in Laughlin and Virgin River in Mesquite. They are all in the SNBA, so any travel leagues will also make it out to there.

Pro shops. David Haynes runs one, and K&K is huge there (They have at least 4). So if you want to know where the competitive leagues are, hit one of their pro shops, and they won't steer you wrong.

Also, if you hang out down by Sunset Station, you may run into Wendy McPherson, and she will never steer you in the wrong direction.

BL.

Awwwww, D. you're leaving the east coast and hdcp for gambling in casinos and the lanes?

I hope Adam told you to practice up.  It's a good bowling area with a lot of good bowlers.  And since it's only 3.5-4 hours from SoCal and Phoenix you see guys from those areas when they have nothing going on.

agreed. Practice up, and practice up good. It's one thing to see them on TV, but it's another thing altogether when you're humbled enough to bowl in league with people like Haynes, Dave Wodka, Mike Durbin, Dede Davidson, Macpherson, Gianotti, etc. I was lucky enough to be able to do that. I moved to Vegas with a 190 average, and coming off of what was my worst year since Collegiates.

I left there with a 207 average, and that was primarily from working with the above, plus Paul Renteria drilling my gear, and coaching from Ron Hoppe (who coached the Singapore national team and went on to start the International Art of Bowling with Belmonte and Asbaty).

I was there when K&K started and opened up for business. And to see where they are now, especially with Adam, Joel, and Brandon is just killer.

Another bonus: the only AMF house they have there is Sam's Town (and I call that AMF just because of pinsetters). Everything there should be either Brunswick pinsetters and independent alleys (Suncoast/GoldCoast/Sam's Town/Orleans are together), while the Stations and South Point should be together as well; Wildfire is by itself, and Silver Nugget may be the only urethane house there.

Oh, one last thing.. If you ever find yourself restless at night, head out to either Suncoast or Santa Fe station. They should still be doing the $.50/game every night after 1am, weekends included (may have gone up to $1 now). Getting away with 10 games for $5 is just a good deal all around.

BL.

Awesome run down BL.  Thank you very much for the info.  I'll be settled in by the end of February so drop me a line on here if you're ever in the area.  I'm definitely going to get my practice in before WSOP season this summer so I can be somewhat sharp by the fall.  How is the side action during leagues out there?  Where I am now, the biggest league runs a 2nd game $20 winner take all pot (out of the 3 game set) that will get to around $1400-1800 weekly for just one game.  Is there much action in terms of pots/brackets/survival eliminator during leagues?  It seems like with all of that talent, it'd be pretty easy to get some good side money swinging around in league.

Depends on the league.. some of the ones that have the competitive crowd in it still run side pots, brackets, reverse brackets, and Pot-o-Gold. Last I was in it, Pot-o-Gold started at $10 to get in, with 300 being the score to hit. It dropped one pin every 3 weeks if no-one shot that score, but went no lower than 290. The few times I got into it, the pot was around $4000. So it got pretty high.

You'll definitely see some side money flying around. I'll guarantee you that.

BL.