Sweepers at Sam's Town PrimeTimers 9-pin No Tap Tournament, Monday June 6, 2016

Our lost teammate, Shirley, had wanted us to bowl in all four sweepers to be held at the PrimeTimer's 9-pin no tap tournament on Monday. She was going to bowl with another bowler from Cheyenne, Sam, in mixed doubles at the event, as well as with us.  Males and females could be on the same team - the scores were divided into those for men and women, even during Sweepers.

The first sweeper would begin at 10:30.

Linda and I got up at 6, and I texted Jacque and Laura to see if they wanted to eat breakfast with us. Both declined.

Linda and I headed for the Firelight Buffet, and met Jacque with her bowling ball bag - she was going to check in, as team captain, and get our lane assignments.

Linda and I had a good breakfast buffet, then we went up to get our bowling bags and reported to the bowling center. We took out our bowling balls and shoes, and placed the bags in the PrimeTimer's Paddock, a room full of shelves on which people could store their gear for free.

Jacque handed us our PrimeTimers shirts, a coupon booklet, and the card on which were our lane assignments for the four sweepers we'd be bowling.

PrimeTimers 2016 collared shirt, lane assignment card, and a slip for .... something! Don't think I ever filled it out!

Coupon for the cocktail party, included in the price of the tourney

One of 3 $5 off coupons for food at Sam's Town

One of four Bingo coupons for one pack of 6 games

Coupon for free keno

We wore our mint green shirts and beads, even though these were sweepers and we were essentially bowling for ourselves.

Laura did not bowl in any of the sweepers - the Sam's Town bowling office refunded the money Shirley had paid, and Laura had a bad hip and did not want to bowl 8 extra games.

I had thought the Sweepers would consist of a series of three games each, but there were only two games in each set.

I did poorly in the first set - my thumb was having trouble coming out of my Brunswick Mastermind (a reactive ball), which had been drilled with a fingertip grip, so I switched to my plastic Viz-a-ball which had a skeleton pirate on one side and a treasure map on the other. Did poorly with that and switched back to the Mastermind, just throwing it harder to make sure my thumb wouldn't stick.

So, my score in the first games weren't that good. 135 (208 with my handicap of 74). In the 2nd game of this first 10:30 set I did better, a 173 so with my handicap, 247. Together that added up to 455 handicap, not good enough to get a place in the first Sweeper.

I can't remember if I did brackets for these first two games, but I know I did them for the second two...

And in the second two, I did very well. We had moved from lanes 23 and 24 to lanes 31 and 32, and this pair of lanes was ideal for the left hander.

I had a 182/256 and a 228/302, giving me a 558. Good enough for 8th place in this sweeper.   My team mate Linda had a 285/313 and 288/316 to tie for second place. (Jacque didn't place in any of the sweepers.)

Score screens for us all, 2nd game of 2nd sweeper.

In the third sweeper, I fell down a bit... we moved to 41 and 42 and I had a 192/266 and a 152/226, for a 492 series, not good enough to place.

First game of THIRD sweeper.  Five real strikes in a row!

For the final sweeper, we moved to lanes 47 and 48.

I didn't do good in the first game, just a 155/229. However in the final game I did extremely well, 228/342 - finishing with 3 real strikes in a row.  (I'd had 5 9-pin strikes.) This gave me a series of 531, and I expected to be "in the money," but there were fewer people bowling in this final sweeper and it paid out only 8 places, ending at 540!

Ah well!

After the games were over, we changed and met for dinner at the Firelight Buffet. Then we went to the Free Slot Tournament.

Waiting in an area set aside for the slot tournament

We had 5 minutes to try to win as much money as possible on the machines. We were each given 500 credits. (I toyed with the idea of just cashing out and not playing, but decided against it!) I started out slow but eventually passed Linda, who was sitting next to me, but other people in the tournament did much better and we won nothing.

Then, we went to the Bingo Hall to try our hand at Bingo. Laura is an avid Bingo player and had brought two daubers with her. I called dibs on one, so Linda went and bought one from a machine in the entryway for $1. (You had to use a dauber on your cards, you couldn't just use a pen or a highlighter.)  I think Jacque had brought her own dauber with her.

Our coupon was good for one free pack of six games. Having never played bingo before, I started out slow. The announcers called out the numbers in a monotone, and during the first game would intersperse announcements about game play with calling the numbers which amused me extremely.

Over the course of six games, Linda and I came nowhere near bingoing, and by the end of it we were typically swearing beneath our breath as other people would bingo after 6 numbers called and so on.

With bingo over (it had started at 9 and ended a little after 10 - too late to attend the light show again)  Jacque and Laura stayed in the casino to do a bit of gambling. Linda and I went up to our rooms. I did a bit of work on my computer before lights out.