I bowl a 181, but it wasn't enough

We have a lot of awards at DUMBO, our bowling group in Da Nang but one is kind of more difficult to get than the others. It's the high score of the month award and in our league for February the high score is currently 192.

When I started out this game I did so very poorly. The first two frames were left open and it looked like I was going to have an absolutely terrible game.

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The above is not me, it isn't even my image but it is the same bowling alley. I was trying very hard to stay "in the zone" when I started doing well in frame 3 so I didn't take the time to do any photos. It all began in frame 3 when I finally picked up a spare. Honestly, I should have picked up the first 2 as well but it would be 8 more frames before I would fully realize exactly how important those first two screwups would end up being.

I ended up getting spares in the next 2 frames, which brings us to frame 5 where I really exploded and got a strike in the next 3 frames. This resulted in me getting reunited with "the gobbler" which is an award for getting a turkey and I started the day with this award, but two other people ended up getting 3 strikes in a row that day as well. As luck would have it (not luck) they are the only 2 people in our bowling team that also have their own bowling balls.

So as I said in the post-bowling speech "the gobbler took a fun trip to Europe but then returned to America where it belongs." The two people that both also got 3 strikes in a row were from Norway. There was also a ton of people that got 2 strikes in a row and even one guy who bowls right after I do on my lane that very nearly took it away from me in the 10th frame of the last game. I cheered for him but in reality I was really hoping he would miss.

So after I got the 3 strikes in a row I very nearly got a 4th but ended up unluckily getting only 9 of the 10 pins down. I still picked up a spare though and in the 10th frame I got a strike as well. The tension started getting to me in the 10th because I knew I was very close to breaking the monthly high score. Unfortunately for me I ended up with a 3/10 split.

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Now a 3/10 split is one of the easier ones to pick up, particularly if you bowl like I do with a right to left spin. If you hit the 3 on the left, it will ricochet the pin into the 10, if you hit it on the right, the ball will ricochet into the 10. The only thing you have to not do is completely miss the 3 pin or hit it dead on. Even though if I was trying to hit it dead on this is something that is very difficult for me to do, that is exactly what I ended up doing. I got ONLY the 3 pin and therefore did not get my bonus ball in the 10th frame. I ended on a 181.

Had I gotten both pins I would have had a 183 (because of the bonus from the strike in the 9th frame) and on my bonus ball a strike would have given me the high score for the month and 9 pins would have tied it. In a way I am kind of happy that I didn't get the extra ball and 9 pins because then I would have tied the high score and that, as we dictated many months ago, is not enough. In order to have the high score you not only have to meet it, you have to beat it.

So now I am just reflecting about how if I had done better in those first 2 frames I would have been basically guaranteed the high score of the month but alas, it was not meant to be. For me and I think most other people in this league and perhaps the rest of the world, when you're hot you're hot, when you're not you're not.

So I did get the highest score of the day but all of that will be forgotten by next week. If you want to end up in the record books, you have to do better than 181, even though this is a very high score for people bowling on public lanes with rental equipment.

The all time high score for our league is 234 and no, that was not done by me. The highest I have ever scored in Da Nang, Vietnam is 204 and the highest I have ever scored in my entire life is 235 and that was over 30 years ago. It was also a very lucky day because I was not good, I was just lucky back then.

These days I don't really think I am good at this game, but I am better than the average person. Someone with real skills would destroy me and there is one guy in our group that I haven't defeated in over a year. I have faced off against him multiple times but on those days he was on fire and I was just slightly above average. The pressure gets to you even though there is no money at stake and our awards are actually kind of silly.

Let's hope I can do better next week but honestly, I doubt it.