It is not normal for me to get 6 strikes in one game. I think I have done it just a few times in the past year or so. It certainly isn't normal for me to get them 3 in a row, twice, in the same game.
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This is a learning moment though, for people to understand that where you get your strikes is probably more important than IF you get them. I got 6 of them in the same game but still ended up with a paltry 140 points. How's this possible? I had all the accolades from my friends and I even walked away with a silly award that we call the "gobbler". It's just a rubber chicken but people really enjoy holding this award since it is the only one that can be taken away from you at any time, even in the middle of a game.
Let's look at where my "awesome" game went terribly wrong and how I can get nearly half of the available rolls perfect and still end up with an unimpressive score.
For starters, that was one of the worst starts I have had in any game I have ever done while living in this city. I don't know who was in my head for the first half of the game, but it was a different guy than the person who turned up in the 6th frame to blow the game out of the water. I just couldn't make anything work early on and this was particularly evident in the 2nd frame where I did not look like a guy that has held championship gold 4 times in the past.
Strikes work like this: They count as 10 points plus the total of the next two balls rolled. So you can see that in frame 9 where I rolled a gutterball on my first roll that I really screwed up the bonus for frames 7 and 8. If you look at frame 6 you will notice a 30 point jump from frame 5 because this is the maximum amount of points that you can possibly get in a frame hence the maximum total score of 300.
I didn't photo it but the last ball I rolled in the 10th was also a strike and I was quite happy about this. The system erases your history after you roll your last ball and I wanted a photo of the entire game. However, there is a caveat with deciding to do well late in the game. Frame 10 is a special frame because you will not get the bonus for any ball rolled other than the first one. Therefore my 2nd and 3rd strike in frame 10 isn't really that huge of a bonus. The most points you can get in any single frame is 30, even if it is 3 strikes in the 10th.
There are a lot of people that would be super pleased with a 140 but for me this is nothing terribly special. I bowl around this amount on a regular basis and I do so without bowling 6 strikes.
one thing that kind of haunts me is how different the score would have been if I had gotten a strike in frame 9 as well because due to the various bonuses it would have jumped my score to 186. Which is below my 2022 best but at least in my world, is a very good score. Plus it would have been the most strikes in a row that anyone in DUMBO has ever gotten. The current record is 5 in a row and that record is currently held by me in a game that I had over a year ago.
There was another game after this one and unfortunately I wasn't able to carry the magic into that game. I ended up with a 136 in game 2.
One thing that is really frustrating to me about this day was that while I was kind of on fire as far as strikes were concerned, I only picked up a single spare the entire day. In my mind, being able to pick up spares is more important than getting strikes here and there because it shows that you have actual accuracy. This is tough for me to pull off though because I bowl with a right-to-left curve. If i leave pins on the far right of the lane it is very unlikely that I am going to pick them up, ever.
With a 140 I ended up with the 2nd highest score of anyone at the lanes that day so that was good. I ended up going into a draw to face the current champion next week but didn't win the random draw. Hopefully I can take this magic into next week and even improve upon it, perhaps learn how to pick up some desperately needed spares.