Scoring Mechanics in Bowling Games

Bowling as sometimes called tenpins is an indoor game played on a polished wooden or synthetic floor by teams or individuals. Bowling is very popular in the US and to other countries, as well.

In bowling games, the players or sometimes-called bowlers, roll ball toward ten pins. The pins are usually made from wood or plastic, arranged in triangular formation, with the headpin 60 feet from a foul line. The bowling ball is made from various materials like but not limited to; rubber, plastic, urethanes.

Bowling games consist of ten runs each game, called frames. The bowlers would try to knock down all ten pins. The scores are kept on a sheet or video screen which list the bowler’s names, the frames, the number of pins knocked down with each ball, and the final scores.

During the first nine frames, the bowler rolls one or two balls. If the bowler knocked down all the ten pins with the first throw of ball, the bowler rolled a strike, the best roll possible. An X is recorded on the scoresheet or screen, and then the bowler will receive ten points from the ten pins being knocked down plus a bonus of the number of pins the bowler is going to knock down in the next two bowls. So, the maximum possible score in a strike frame is 30.

But, if there are still pins standing after the first throw of a frame, the bowler takes another shot. By knocking down all the remaining pins, the result is a spare. A slash (/) is recorded on the scoresheet or screen, and the player will receive ten points plus a bonus of the number of pins knocked down with the next throw. The maximum score in a spare frame is 20. The computation is, the spare’s ten points followed by another ten if the next frame is a strike.

If the bowler failed to knock down all the ten pins in both throws, the points with which the bowler will get is only the total number of pins knocked down. If a bowler failed to knock down even one pin, a dash (-) will be recorded on the scoresheet.

Players who rolls spares but strikes during the tenth and last frame will receive bonus. Bowlers who roll a spare will get an extra ball, and the number of pins knocked is added to the score. Bowlers who roll a strike will get two more balls to try and to be added to their earlier scores. The other terminologies in bowling games are turkey, which means three strikes in a row, and a split, which means a wide gap between the remaining pins after a throw.

A player can get a top score of 300 or called a perfect game, by registering a strike in each frame and on the last two extra balls. Perfect bowling games rarely happen. Most of the professional bowlers only average more than 230, and amateurs have a hard time making even 100.

Bowling Games

Most people know bowling. Everyone has played the sport or had seen one. But what people don’t know perhaps is there are several versions of bowling games, each of them equally entertaining in their own right.

To categorize the existing bowling games, it falls under two types. Knock-down types includes ten-pin, nine-pin and five-pin, which the main game objective is knocking down a number of pins in a least number of rolls. Target types involve determining a target and getting a ball as close to the target by either throwing or rolling the ball.

Of the bowling games variants, there are several, and they are:

The Ten-pin
Ten-pin is the most played bowling variant around the world. An estimate of 100 million people plays bowling which is the highest estimate for any sport except soccer, and a majority 80% plays exclusively ten-pins. In fact, corporate entrepreneurs like the AMF Bowling made colossal profits when they introduced the fully automatic pinsetter to the gaming public. As the name implies, this game uses ten pins, a ten pin alley, and a bowling ball.

The Nine-Pin
The nine-pin, also called as Skittles, is most standard version of the sport. This game is often played in pubs and bars. It is a country sport that is very popular in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and some particular regions of the British Isles. Skittles are played in a skittle alley, and use a single set of nine pins. The balls are smaller than that of a ten-pin game, but there are other versions that use a round flat wooden discus called as a ‘cheese’ in place of a ball.

The Five-pin
This 1909 bowling variant is a spin off from the nine-pin to offer a chance for casual bowlers to play bowling in a shorter time. By using smaller balls (the size of a fist) the game progresses very fast. The five-pin game also allows the balls to be thrown in a quick succession. This game variant is especially popular in Canada.

Candlepin bowling
Another spin off of the nine-pin game, though this game is mostly confined to parts of the United States. Candlepin bowling has no real differences between the other types of its genre except that it uses more slender pins and during turns, the fallen pins aren’t cleared away.

Bowls and Petanque
Bowls, also known as Lawn Bowling or Bocce, is an example of target bowling. It is a precision sport where the objective is to roll the ball (called ‘bowls’) as close to the ‘target’ white ball (called ‘jack’). Bowls is the most widespread of the bowling target games and is popular in the UK and most parts of Europe.

Petanque is a form of bowls that is very popular in France, particularly in Provence. It is also the mostly played sport in Marseilles. Though not much different from bowls, the only difference would be that Petanque is played with a shortened pitch, and the moving delivery of bowls was changed to a stationary one of Petanque.

Because of the minimal physical activity and the unhurried pace of bowling games, bowling has become a popular participant sport especially for the elderly. But the seemingly unhurried pace of bowling games did still attract scores of young players. In fact, younger crowd dominates professional competition for this sport.