The Thailand Bowling Resort

About three years ago, I had this notion of putting together the "Thailand Bowling Resort". Enthusiasm for my latest brilliant idea normally wanes within a week or two, but I was hyped for several months. I put together the graphics (see the bowling balls in the coconut trees?) and a five page business proposal, and even made some meager attempts to contact folks with big bucks.

I envisioned myself as the Willy Wonka of global bowling. Given the relatively cheap costs of bowling in Thailand, you could send members of your league over here, toss a few games, and then drink cocktails on the beach. There'd be 200 foot lanes, and lanes with Evel Knievel style "loop the loops". Banked, race-track style lanes. Lanes with 15 or 21 pins. For the serious bowlers, you'd be able to choose from any number of lane conditions, and actually toss all sorts of balls...not just cheap plastic house balls. Video would be available so you could check out your form. Etc.

It never happened, of course. All you venture capitalists can feel free to grab the idea. But you gotta give me rein to mysteriously wander the premises in the wee hours, with tuxedo, top hat, and cane.

*******

Actually, I haven't tossed a bowling ball for nearly half a year now. My new focus is on Himalayan climbing...I'd really like to get up over 8,000 meters someday. More on that later. But it's not like all my bowling balls are going to waste...I build leg strength and endurance by stuffing the balls into my backpack and "trekking" up and down the stairs in the condo.

Not quite ready to compete with the guys below, though...

Bowling in Bangkok

Here's a subject I know a fair amount about. There are probably 20 different alleys in Bangkok, and most are quite modern. Probably more modern than the average alley in the States, actually. There are even alleys in the boonies, like Udon, HatYai, Korat, Khon Kaen. Surin, where the average denizen grows jasmine rice, used to have one.

You can bowl a game for as little as 30 baht (about $.75), depending on where you go. The most expensive I've seen is about 120 baht, at Major Bowl, where they've got the black lights and a DJ (and crummy lane conditions!).

The differences? Well, the Thais seem less restricted by concepts of the "correct" way to bowl. There aren't so many really great Thai bowlers, so there's nobody to really mimic. No reference points. Thus you can go to a lane and see an amazing variety of styles, and I'm not just talking about newcomers. My favorite is the guy at Columbia Bowl (Rangsit) who goes through these Tai-Chi moves as part of his follow-through...he releases the ball and finishes in something like a flamingo position after another couple seconds of gyrations.

You'll see plenty of backspins here. There's that "helicopter" style that started in Taiwan...it can actually be effective, as much as I hate to say it. You see lofters, who might do better if they took up shot-putting. There are fairly experienced bowlers who have concluded that a "brooklyn" shot is a more efficient way to strike. And of course, the teenage boys, who would rather generate a radical curve than a high score...they place their arm in a corkscrew formation and "unwind" as they approach the foul line.

There's a coach at Ramkhamhaeng who actually trains his bowlers to come to a near full-stop at the foul line, raise the ball to a perfectly vertical position over their heads (their backs are roughly parallel to the floor), and only then begin the downswing...you can see his students ("casualties" might be a better word, as I've yet to see one of these guys come anywhere near winning a competition) all over Bangkok. Word is, that coach was actually a decent bowler himself, and his style was quite conventional.

In the States, bowling is often thought of as a working class sport. Quite different in Thailand...a good ball costs about a month's wage for an average Thai, and a couple games could easily be a day's wage. You go to the lanes to be seen and socialize. You'll see a lot of very well-dressed (with the exception of the shoes, of course) women who toss the ball, turn around and giggle without bothering to see whether the ball actually hits the pins.

Of course, the issue of broken fingernails prevents a certain percentage of women from playing at all.

I recall bowling at Rangsit next to this Thai guy who proudly told me he had already thrown 27 games that day...with his wife holding the baby all the while.

Sometimes the whole extended family shows up. That happened today...about 12 family members, most of whom didn't bowl, on two lanes. There's the stroller and the toddler. The pregnant woman wandering around the facility in the altered state that pregnant women find themselves in. Constant flashing of the camera. Abundant applause for strikes and spares. They brought their own food in plastic containers.

Gambling is another issue. We're not talking about little wagers between bowlers...we're talking about guys who supplement their income by eyeballing the lanes for splits, and then offering odds to the bowlers. On a league night at RCA or Ramkhamhaeng, there might be 6 or 7 of these vultures on the prowl. You don't even need to verbally communicate with them to place a bet...the odds on a particular split are usually the same for everybody, so you just hold up your fingers and tell them how many baht you'll wager.

Being a logical sort of guy, I'd never place a bet with these gamblers...if they didn't profit, you wouldn't see them at the lanes. They know what they're doing, despite their easygoing demeanor and big smiles. Personally, I can't stand them...they got quite nasty when a former member of my team (a gambling addict, admittedly) fell into debt with them. He dropped off my team and I haven't seen him for several years now. You might consider calling the police to clean these guys off the lanes (after all, gambling is illegal)...problem is, a lot of these guys ARE the police.

One word that isn't frequently associated with Thais is "competitive". They've got this game called "nine-pin strike" where (if I'm not mistaken...I only played once) a one-pin leave counts as a strike, so it's fairly easy to walk away from a competition with a 300 score and a few thousand baht...a high skill level isn't essential. In the leagues, handicaps are quite high, so even the crappiest of teams can win on a given night. In my own 18 team league, the members of the team that finished SIXTH all receive trophies. AND there's a "booby prize" for finishing second to last. AND, since no team is allowed to win more than one prize, there are still trophies remaining for high game, high game handicap, high series, and high series handicap. Virtually everyone walks away from awards night with a goody in their hands.

To Bowl a 300 or a 292

In the great bowling alley of your mind
I am the pinboy
I am your pinboy

(The Fugs, "Crystal Liason")

************

Nov 4, 2007: I bowled my second 300 today. It was probably one of the least celebrated 300's in history. Two folks, looking to be father and daughter, ate food and watched. Nearby bowlers and the ball boys didn't notice. Later, Tum, the manager, appeared on the scene. When I quit bowling, I assumed that someone had informed him of my little achievement. That was purely egocentric, however, since he expressed surprise when I strutted into the pro shop like a peacock. I asked about my 100 free games, but he said, "so sorry...that promotion just ended". Could I have one free game? He laughed. I asked if I could have the scoresheet that recorded the 300, but it looks like they just had the secretary type something up. They say they'll put my name on the "Wall of Fame". I'll believe it when I see it.

For those of you looking for clues as to the intangibles that go into a 300, let me tell you what I did before and during the game. I woke up and drank coffee. I listened to the "Skeptics Guide to the Universe" podcast. I had a hot chocolate and a vitamin. I went to the fitness club and burned 1070 calories, at least according to the readout on the stair machine. I didn't have breakfast or lunch. At the bowling alley, I quickly established myself as an asshole, switching lanes because some inexperienced adjacent bowlers violated etiquette in a number of ways. These violations included stepping up to bowl when I was already on the approach, and worst of all, walking through my territory (the seats, the computer) to get to the ball racks!

OK, let me change the sardonic tone for a second, because there were a few take-away lessons today. Most of the preceding games were fairly mediocre...a 124 was included in the mix, and it wasn't for lack of effort. Problem was, the lanes were bloody dry, and the ball was hooking out of control. When teenage Thais ask me about bowling, they never ask how to get a good score. They want to know how to hook the ball. There's really no convincing them that the big, sexy hook can be counterproductive, at least for a beginner. You gain a tad of striking power, but lose virtually all your accuracy when you contort your arm like a damn corkscrew. I had the opposite problem today...my throws were curvaceous and sexy, but I wanted dowdy and frigid.

Given the bad scores, I was just about ready to give up. I considered throwing a house ball, just to retrieve some fun from the experience. For whatever reason, though, I decided to stop cleaning the ball with the towel. I always wipe the ball with the towel! But this attitude of "giving up" had me ready to do something unusual. If you're reading this, and you don't know much about bowling, you should know that dry (un-oily) lanes make the ball curve more. Every time your ball rolls down the lane, you remove even more oil from the lane, and the lane becomes drier. If you don't like this dryness, it makes sense to avoid removing the oil from the ball.

Anyway, the towel decision seems to have been a good one. Normally, I wipe the ball without any conscious thought, out of pure force of habit, so I just tossed that towel far out of reach. I "threw in the towel"! The ball traveled down the lane much more predictably, and none of those 12 strikes could be considered lucky. I got a bit nervous around the 8th frame, but experience came in handy: I know quite well that the first thing that suffers when you're nervous is the "lift" you put on the ball...your fingers might lose their stiffness, the ball rotates more slowly, and you hit the pocket too lightly.

Despite the nervousness, I was also able to retain my nerdiness...I really wanted to know what animation appears on the monitor when you get your 11th strike. Last time I tossed a 300, I got lost in the excitement and didn't notice.

1) Several possibilities, including a smiling, bungee-jumping bowling ball .
2) The ball splits into two and lands a strike on two lanes.
3) A turkey, of course.
4) A baseball field.
5) The Olympic rings.
6) A six pack of beer.
7) Something about angels.
8) A pool table.
9) Something about rollercoasters.
10) I forget.
11) Something about speed boats traversing buoys!!!

Then there's some sort of fireworks animation when you get the 300.

****************
Don't anybody interpret the above as boasting. It's a lot easier to toss a 300 than it used to be, given high-tech balls and lane conditions that are tailored to provide ordinary folks with high scores (it's good for business). At the bowling alley I usually visit, 12 perfect games have been bowled this year. Supposedly, something like 40,000 perfect games are bowled worldwide every year, up from 5,000 per year in the age of rubber balls. Roughly speaking, one might guess that 1,000,000 perfect games have been thrown in the course of history.

In the taxi, I recall thinking about tossing a 300. We now have proof that anticipating a 300 is not an insurmountable curse.

As further evidence of my nerdhood, a score in the 290's wouldn't have bothered me too much. Why? Cuz I've never done that. It would be pleasing to add a 29N to my bag of scores. I've done 28N, 27N, all the way down to 2N. Hell, I threw a 7N a couple years ago with every intention of bowling a 2NN. Even as a child, I probably never threw a 1N or just plain N, but it wouldn't be difficult to hop over to the alley and add those scores to the collection.

In fact, when you consider the historical rarity of certain scores, 292 is certainly the absolute most difficult score in bowling. There's only one way to do it...you bowl 11 strikes and then knock down 2 pins. If you already had 11 strikes in a row, and intended to throw a 291, all you've got to do is knock down the 7 pin or 10 pin. But it's very difficult to intentionally knock down just 2 out of 10 pins. Try it!

There's actually a discussion of this topic here. Apparently, there are some 291's on record. But nobody has heard of a 292.

A 292 would have to be a true act of sacrifice to both the gods of nerddom and the gods of bowling. The nerd gods would be pleased by the rarity of the score. The bowling gods, robed in polyester, would be propitiated because you humbly refrained from seeking perfection, leaving 8 pins as an offering instead. The bowling alley manager would also be pleased, of course, because you probably just tossed a cash reward or a good number of free games right down the toilet.