My night with my brother didn’t start that well for me, and I knew I was in for it fairly early when I left a 5-10 split on what I thought was a shot that contacted the pocket (if I leave the 5-10 at all, it’s usually when I go wide left). In a rarity, he beat me 161-137, the 161 which we believed was his best game since he’s been bowling with me, and he had five marks in a row in that game, also a first.
Taking the loss as motivation, I buckled down, recovering a second game in the 150s after making the decision to shell up from my Hy-Road to my Reign of Fire and play deeper in. Continuing the trend toward improvement, I also made a breakthrough with my spare game mechanics: I noticed that I tend to let my swing drift out when shooting spares, particularly corner pins, so keeping my swing straight on second ball was a point of emphasis. On the night, I only missed one single pin, a 10 that I just barely missed left, and, in the third game, I felt comfortable enough to try to throw my spare ball at my 7; I had two 7s in the third game and did not miss either of them.
Indeed, I was on my spare game enough to have a clean game in the third game, a 215. My brother actually got the first double of the night in the middle of the game, but I matched that double, and kept marking until the 10th frame. In the 10th, after getting my first strike, I wanted to leave no doubt with my brother that the game was clean (I’ve posted before that he doesn’t consider a game clean unless you left no pin on the deck to end the 10th frame), so I threw two more. With my best game in weeks, I considered my ego salved from my first game loss.
Why didn’t I think to try to play inside with strong equipment sooner in my season? 
The Tenth Board 