Some sponsorship changes and a $10 entry fee hike will keep the prize fund in line with what it has been for the 2026 GIBA 11thFrame.com Open Aug. 14-16 at Cherry Lanes inside the Diamond Jo Casino in Dubuque, Iowa.

Greater Iowa Bowling Association administrator Joe Engelkes said in an email to GIBA players on Thursday that the Dubuque Regional Sports Commission changed its rules so it now allows requests for funding to be made only every third year. 

That means GIBA wasn’t even be able to request funding for the 2026 11thFrame.com Open and also won’t be able to in 2027.

Fortunately, Joe was able to come up with a plan that maintains the prize fund and it includes an entry fee hike from $160 to $170 (matching the Ebonite Classics), and me hiking my sponsorship from $400 to $500 and moving it from slot cards for non-cashers to the prize fund, as well as some additional sponsorship and administrative adjustments.

With the usual full field of 156 players, first through fifth this year again will be $2,800, $2,300, $1,800, $1,400 and $1,100, and the rest of the prize fund will be essentially the same and is detailed in the PDF of the flyer attached to the bottom of this story.

The field will fill fast and the only way to reserve a spot is to send Engelkes the entry fee. Engelkes can be contacted at 319-269-6909 or jengelkesgiba@gmail.com.

The downtown Holiday Inn that is a short walk from the Diamond Jo again has a room block for the tournament. The 30- rooms are available until July 15 for both Friday and Saturday night of that weekend at $149 per night. Call 563-556-2000 and reference “11thFrame.com Open 26.”

The weekend again will feature a Friday sweeper, and the tournament Saturday and Sunday.

Mike Flanagan's InsideBowling.com will webcast the tournament this year. 

Cherry Lanes manager Bob Hochrein is working with USBC lane pattern designer Nick Hoagland on modifying the lane pattern that has been used in the tournament the last four years. The goal is to bring the scoring pace down slightly. I will update this story with the pattern once it is finalized and it will be posted at the tournament. 

The pattern from 2022-25 was 37 feet with 24.63 mL of oil and pattern ratios by volume of 1.11-1 on the left and 1.66-1 on the right.

For years we used a modification of the 2015 U.S. Open pattern designed by Hoagland, but for 2022 Hoagland helped Hochrein craft a shorter pattern.

I’ll say again something I’ve written and said numerous times: the margin between lefty dominance and shutout, and excessive softness and brutality is smaller now than it ever has been in bowling history. Equity between sides and styles and a middle ground in scoring has never been harder for a lane pattern designer to find.

The huge challenge is finding something that holds up on the right side for the 12 games on Sunday without having players ending up lofting the left guttercap as happened in 2014. That generally means a pattern that plays from the outside, but it’s very hard to use such a pattern without having lefties dominate. Compensating for that domination can easily shut them out.

Hoagland said before the 2022 tournament that “The pattern should play out for everyone and I do expect urethane to be in play. I think that the pattern will hold up for 12 games due to the fact that everyone’s ball will be outside of the first arrow at the breakpoint; thus saving the track and middle parts of the lane for later in the block.”

The one thing I promise is transparency in what we put out and the reasoning that goes into it — I would not allow my name and brand to be part of any tournament that didn’t offer transparency.

In 2022, no left-handers were close to making the stepladder finals. The cut for six games was at 1,252 and last cash was 1,242.

In 2023, Cam Crowe finished seventh and Nate Stubler ninth for the top left-handed finishes. The cut was 1,229 and the cash 1,215.

In 2024, Crowe won and five left-handers made the cut. The cut was 1,292 and the cash 1,284.

In 2025, three lefties made the cut and they finished 13^th (Brandon Kreyer), 17^th (Crowe), and 47^th (Trenton Holz). The cut was 1,297 and the cash 1,287.

Why the differences in left-hander performance and cut and cash numbers with the same lane pattern being used? Different batches of oil or types of oil? Lane play choices?

I don’t think there is a way to definitively answer that. I just know we like that left-handers have not been shut out the last two years, but also have not dominated, while the scoring pace has been reasonable, if a bit higher than many players told me they prefer when I asked last year.

Engelkes said there will be more than $3,000 in added money from GIBA sponsor Ebonite and returning tournament sponsors Diamond Jo Casino, Cherry Lanes, Brandon Steen/The Steen Team, IAMBowling, Kwik Star/Kwik Trip, and 11thFrame.com. 

(As part of my semi-retirement from competitive bowling after 2022, I retired from the staffs of Storm Products, Turbo 2-N-1 Grips, and IAMBowling, although I will be a life staffer with all three in my heart. But this does enable GIBA to have its overall sponsor Ebonite pick up the 11thFrame.com Open as well. I appreciate Ebonite allowing Storm to sponsor the 11thFrame.com Open while I was a staffer.)

Every dollar of the $170 entry fee goes to the prize fund, thanks to Cherry Lanes donating the lineage.

The only extra fee entrants must pay is the GIBA $10 season membership fee, and that gets you the right to compete in other GIBA events in 2026-27.

The sweeper starts at 5 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 14, and features a simple format of five games with total pins determining finishing position. The tournament lane pattern will be used. 

The entry fee will be $50, with $40 to the prize fund and $10 to lineage. The cashing ratio will be 1-in-4 with a first prize of $400 based on 60 entries, and $500 added by GIBA.

If you can't make the tournament Saturday and Sunday, you still can enter the sweeper on Friday night. 

Saturday’s qualifying again will feature 6-game squads at 9 a.m., 1 p.m. and 5 p.m., with pins carrying over and one-third of the bowlers advancing to Sunday and cashing. With three squads full, there will be a 156-bowler field, 48 players advancing and four more cashing.

Re-entries will be allowed on B and C squads, with priority given to first entries in this way: New entries will have priority if they are paid before Saturday. Re-entries will come next if they are paid before Saturday. For those paid on Saturday, new entries will get priority over re-entries up to half an hour before the final two squads’ scheduled start time, then it will be first come, first served until the squads start.

Per GIBA policy, bowlers can request to bowl with specific bowlers but lane assignments for pairs will be by random draw.

Sunday’s innovative format that comes from the fertile mind of Mike Flanagan features 12 games of bowling starting at 9 a.m. with bonus pins based on score from highest to lowest. For example, if 48 advance to Sunday in each game the highest scorer will get 48 bonus pins, the second-highest scorer 47 pins, so on down to 1 bonus pin for the lowest score each game. Whatever number of finalists there are, that number of bonus pins will go to the high scorer down to 1 pin for the lowest score each game.

Yes, it’s not head-to-head; instead, it’s all-against-one. The idea is to reward the consistently solid bowler and not the one who may bowl the right people at the right time. And everyone who makes the cut gets to bowl all of Sunday's games.

After those 12 games, the top five will compete in a stepladder finals on fresh oil.

There will be optional prize funds for seniors and women similar to the GIBA Ebonite Classics, along with brackets, pot games and a Bet You Win pot. And there will be a SMART option for youth bowlers, as GIBA offers with the Classics.

Seniors and women each are guaranteed a 1-in-3 cashing ratio paying at least $170 per check. For example, if 15 seniors enter and two cash in the regular prize list there would be three separate senior checks so five cash.

And a separate $20 entry fee for a separate additional prize fund likely will be offered for both seniors and women — this is not noted on the flyer.

If additional sponsorship is obtained, it will be used to pay extra spots, senior and/or female checks, or improve the overall prize list.

All we ask of competitors and fans is to patronize the sponsors who help make this such a great tournament: including eating and gambling at Cherry Lanes and the Diamond Jo.

If you do gamble, please get a player’s card and use it! This is VERY important to continue the tournament and sponsorship! (The Diamond Jo is part of Boyd Gaming, so whenever you are in a city with a choice in gambling facilities and one is a Boyd property, you could patronize the Boyd property and let them know why.)

And please thank Hochrein and everyone else at the center and the Diamond Jo. Hochrein is a USBC Open Championships Eagle winner and PBA regional title holder who cares about the sport and manages a top notch staff.

As usual, Engelkes and his family are taking no expense fee for running the tournament, which again will be a points tournament in GIBA’s schedule for 2026-27. All the Engelkes ever do is take a portion of the bracket proceeds while donating the rest back to the prize funds. 

Joe is one of the top tournament operators I know and I couldn’t think of a better guy and group to run the 11thframe.com Open.

Matt McNiel won in 2012, Matt Gasn in 2014, McNiel again in 2015, Jay Watts in 2016, Adam Morse in 2017, Andy Mills in 2018, Nate Stubler in 2019, Jerry Marrs in 2020, Stubler again in 2021, Nick Pate in 2022, Dakota Solonka in 2023, Crowe in 2024. and David Cole II in 2025. (No tournament was held in 2013.)