I have heard that many of the top teams commit to "break down their pair" to make a shot. Anyone care to share their stragedy for doing this?

^^^^^Yep.  During match play of a tournament on the shark pattern, I took a fury that I leave in the car thats sanded to 60 grit. Yep, 60 grit.  And ripped it right up the gutter to give me some more bounce.  It worked even though I ended up losing.
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www.bowlingsolutions.com

Move left, hook it more.....

Tommy Jones is a Gamecock fan...are you???

We shall now refer a 4-bagger as a hambone...Mark it down the revolution has started!

Every shot you throw changes the lane pattern, so the choice is between trying to do it in a logical way or a haphazard way. We choose to do it logically, though we have been wrong in our gameplan at least once. The keys are getting all 10 guys to cooperate in executing what you want to do. For example, last year we all used balls with some surface (1,000 to 2,000 Ab) in the 8-10 range in practice, then moved in a little as we got to the last couple of minutes of practice trying to line up. The balls we manage our environment with are the same ones we use, typically. I believe it is a detriment to use something that looks like you dragged it behind you car on the way to the center. It is hard to keep a ball like that in an area and I think it can make lanes too wet-dry. I do know some PBA guys that do that, though.

Again, keep in mind that EVERY SHOT CHANGES THE PATTERN. You can not legislate that away with rules. Your choice is to work together or just fire away randomly. To ensure that all our guys work together, I long ago devised and sold everyone on a 10-way split of brackets. We all put in the same amount, some guys get put in more brackets, but we split all winnings equally. That way everyone knows it is to their benefit to work together and not "shimwreck" by going 5 or 10 boards left of everyone else. Someone who violated our 10-man philosophy would be looking for a new team the next year. And, yes, my team is typically giving up some money to our other team in splitting brackets, but we know having them work with us helps us, and they are a good team that in some years has bowled as well as us. Plus, we are all great friends and this makes the USBC experience much more of a shared experience that is a helluva lot more fun than going it alone.

Edited on 2/29/2008 9:06 PM

PB, there is a simple way to handle the taxes that we have been using each year when we do this.

You make up a sheet that everyone attaches to their tax returns each year. It lists name, Social Security number, everyone signs it, then has columns for ENTRY FEES, WINNINGS and ALLOCATED WINNINGS (what each person got in splitting). That shows the IRS that what a big winner in a group may have on their 1099 from USBC is NOT what they took home from the event and explains to the IRS how the winnings were split. We have never had a problem in the years we have done this - and it goes back to the 1990s. My accountant set this up the first time and now we just do it ourselves each year.

The other way it can be done is for those with the winnings send out 1099s to teammates they split with but that's way more complicated.