I am still the champion of the DUMBO league and it went down to the very last frame. Normally in these things a clear victor is pretty evident many frames before the end but this time me and my opponents were within a few points of one another for basically all 20 frames that are involved in the competition.
Even though we had about 5 of our regular players that couldn't make it for this reason or that, we still had enough people that we filled up all but 3 of the lanes in the entire place. It worked out nicely that every lane ended up only having 3 people on them because for me anyway, having more than that unless it is a team game, is too many people and the waits are too long.
So the good news is that that I kept my titles. I am still the individual champion and still have the highest score that has been bowled by anyone in our league at 202 points. The bad news is that I did NOT perform like a champion at all and my scores were an embarrassment to the belt and everything it represents.
I am normally, for the most part, around a 130 average bowler. Yesterday, I got 120 in the first round and my opponent scored a paltry 104. Since the championship is decided by the total points of 2 back-to-back games, this means I enter the 2nd game 16 points ahead of him.
To many people out there 120 is a good game, for me it is a frustratingly "meh" performance. That was until my 2nd game performance was revealed. Me and my challenger didn't have a strike between us the entire 2nd game and our spares were few and far between. The crazy thing is that in every frame that one of us spared, the other one did as well. Then there was one from where the challenger guttered after a spare thereby rendering it relatively useless and I didn't laugh at him or anything but I was thinking "oof" that's a horrible time to do that. Then I walked up for my turn and magically somehow only knock down one pin after my own spare.
I was also plagued with really bizarre pick up splits such as this one
If someone were to trap me in a room or some sort of jail sentence where I would be released only after I was able to convert this split into a spare I think I, and most of the people in the world, would be there for a very very long time if not eternity.
How does this even happen? In a physics aspect it doesn't make sense.
How in the heck did i manage to knock down 4,6,8, and 9 but NOT 5? The 7/10 split is common enough but I have honestly never in my life seen it come along with a 5 in the middle as well.
I wasn't missing the mark too much yesterday, for the most part i was hitting the pins right where you are supposed to to the slight left or right of the 1 pin but the pins just weren't falling for me and I was staring down horrible or damn-near-impossible splits that I failed to pick up for the most part. There was one time that i had a moment of brilliance where I picked up a 2/10 split and that was probably my proudest moment of the day.
Both me and my opponent had a terrible first game but at least for me the 2nd game was even worse. I managed to keep my belt just barely and with a pathetic second round score of a paltry 100, my opponent scored 111 which mean that with both games combined I kept the title by a mere 5 points.
You know how they say practice makes perfect? Well I don't know if that is true because I went bowling on Monday and Tuesday this week and still played like crap yesterday. I am lucky to have the belt still and honestly do not deserve it. Had I been playing nearly any other person in the lanes that day than the person I was actually against, I likely would have lost it.
No one even came close to hitting my all time score of 202 despite one person that got 4 strikes in a row - which is called a "hambone" in case you want some bowling lingo.
The belt stays here for another week I guess. I'm not proud of my performance but the rules are the rules and I actually need to bowl well, I just have to bowl better than my opponent. Nadi is absolutely thrilled that the belt is still here. You can just see the delight on her face.