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2023 USBC Open Championships shows the competitive evil of hiding lane patterns in an extended tournament

JEFF RICHGELS | Posted: Tuesday, July 25, 2023 6:00 pm
2023 USBC Open Championships shows the competitive evil of hiding lane patterns in an extended tournament
A pictorial of USBC Open Championships patterns from 2009-16. The data from 2010-19 and PDFs of the patterns for 2017-23 are at the bottom of this story.
If you don’t understand the competitive evil of hiding lane patterns in a tournament where all competitors don't bowl at the same time, you just don’t understand. The 2023 USBC Open Championships might be the best illustration yet of why hiding the patterns is so competitively unfair. By the time the tournament was a couple weeks in, it was obvious that the minors pattern was hooking an abnormal amount. (The team pattern clearly was close to last year and turned out to be a repeat...