Most Tournament directors do their best to run tournaments fair and smoothly. However, we hear about tournaments that failed to do this and actually operated the tournament so poorly that it was a horrible experience.

Share your best and worst tournament stories here.

In the interest of fairness (and so we don't have any he said/she said fights) we would appreciate everyone refraining from mentioning the tournament's, center's, director's or employee's names.

File this under worst...

About 4-5 years ago I took a long drive to bowl at a big local tournament that is held in and run by a small family owned center every year. The top five payouts where big and it sounded like it would be fun.

While we were bowling I noticed the same guys that assigned us lanes in the tournament office were bowling in the tournament on an end pair and all of them were throwing games that weren't lower than 270. Being suspicious I asked the opposing team on our lane about these guys. I was told that they bowl in it each year and in fact always bowl very well, almost too well...way over their averages. I also learned that the lucky teams that got assigned to the same lane as this team bowls way over their averages too. This quickly gave me the idea that something shady is probably going on with the lane conditions on the pair that the owners bowl on.

After we were done bowling I went over and asked the guys that bowled against them if the lanes were very different from the doubles shift. They all said it was a perfect wall, nothing like the reverse block they bowled on in doubles! Feeling like something was definitely going on I went down to that end pair lane and did a smear test to see if I could determine the pattern. Like I suspected it wasn't a reverse block like we had. It was oiled very heavy in the center to the 10 board and the outsides were very dry. I quickly went over to my lanes and did a smear test there and confirmed that we were in fact on a reverse block as I suspected from my ball reaction. Out of curiosity I went over a couple pairs and did the same thing and again confirmed that they were also a reverse block.

By this time the owners and staff noticed what I was doing and were all huddled and whispering in a hot and bothered tone. A couple of them even had a look of panic. I right then decided I was going to question what the heck is going on here. After getting all my buddies that were now in the bar we went over to the owners. I told them that I suspected that they did not put out the same condition on their pair and that I was going to call the ABC and file a protest. One of them offered us hush money to keep quiet which only infuriated me more. He then said that they were going to refund our entries and we had to leave the center immediately or they were going to call the police. Wanting to avoid trouble with the police who I knew wouldn't get involved in such a dispute I decided to leave and just contact the ABC. It turned out the ABC couldn't do anything about it because the tournament which was supposed to be sanctioned wasn't.

Since then I've been telling as many people as I can about this shady tournament but I hear that they still get a good amount of entries and the owners are still placing in the top 5 each year.

At a large tournament in June 2000, in Rochester NY, the pair next to us a somewhat lenghty breakdown. To make up for the delay to the bowlers, each bowler was given a complimentary strike to start the first game. What's up with that?!?!?!?!?

complimentary strikes? That's almost as good as the peanuts you'd get flying out there.

I believe that an owner should never bowl in a tournement at his or her center. Futhermore
the owner has a responssibility to make certain that lane conditions are fair for all. There are enough tournements around that if an owner wants to bowl in them he can do so without bowling at his own center. When a tournement is held at our center, the laanes are done prior to any bowling; and thereafter, we do the lanes again before each team event which could mean that they are done completely as many as three times a day in order to provide an equal chance for all teams.

Recently I bowled in a tournament where no one was allowed to drink anything but soda or water. My god...whats the fun of bowling if you can't drink beer!?!