Have you gone bowling before and wondered why your final score was lower than others even though you managed to get a couple more spares? For those that already know how to calculate bowling scores, would you like to learn how to keep track of them easily, especially during competitions?Â
In this article, we will teach you the basics of keeping score in a bowling game, as well as methods used by competitive bowlers to track the progress of the game!
Games, Frames, Strikes and Spares
In each bowling game, the bowler bowls 10 frames. The bowler gets two shots in every frame, except the last (frame 10), when he gets three shots.
In the first shot of each frame, the bowler attempts to knock down all 10 pins. If he does, it is known as a strike, and we mark this with an ‘X’. Two strikes in a row is called a double, and three strikes in a row is called a turkey.
If he leaves 1 or more pin after his first shot, he goes again for his second shot in the frame to clear the remaining pins. If he clears all the pins on this shot, it is called a spare, and this is represented by a ‘/’ symbol. If not, we call it a miss or an open frame. Similarly, if the bowler strikes or spares in the frame, we also call it a closed frame.
Open Frames
Recording the score for an open frame is the simplest! we just add up the total number of pins that the bowler hit! For example, if the bowler hits 6 pins on his first shot, and 2 pins on his second, then he scores a total of 8 pins for that frame.
Spares
If the bowler bowls a spare, then the score is 10 + whatever they bowl on the first shot of the next frame. For example, if the bowler hits 9 pins on his first shot in Frame 1, and manages to hit the remaining pin with his second, it is recorded as ‘9 /’. If he then hits an 8 on the first shot of Frame 2, then the total score for Frame 1 is 18.Â
On the 10th frame, if the bowler spares, then they get whatever they hit on the 3rd shot added to the score.
Strikes
If the bowler bowls a strike, then the score is 10 + whatever they bowl on their next two shots. For example, if the bowler bowls a double and a spare for his first 3 frames (recorded as XÂ XÂ 9 /), then the score on the first frame is 29, and the score on the second frame is 20. Whenever 2 or more consecutive strikes are bowled, it is sometimes called a connection.
On the 10th frame, the bowler can potentially hit a turkey, giving a total of 30 pins in a single frame! We call the 9th frame the foundation frame because scoring a strike on the 9th frame can really make up huge ground for the game if the bowler does well on the 10th as well.
Example Game
Comparing Games in Progress
Sometimes we want to estimate how well one bowler is doing compared to another within the same game, and the scores may not be reflective because of strike connections which take up to 2 additional frames to calculate. This is especially true during events where bowlers take turns to bowl one frame at a time.
In such scenarios, we can get a good gauge of the advantage one bowler has over another by using a simple counting system of ‘blacks’ or ‘marks’. We assume that a bowler should have a spare or a non-consecutive strike in each frame. If they have an open frame, then it counts as -1 ‘black’, and if they have a consecutive strike, it counts as +1 black.
For example, if bowler 1 has 6 2Â XÂ X and bowler 2 has 9 /Â 9 /Â 9 /, we will see that bowler 1 only has a score of 8 on the first frame, while bowler 2 has a score of 38 on the second frame.
Using the system of blacks, bowler 1 has 0 blacks (-1 for the open frame and +1 for the double on the second frame), and bowler 2 also has 0 blacks, which implies that the scores are currently close to each other.
Of course, this system of counting is just an estimate, and most crucially does not take into consideration high vs low pin counts, e.g. It judges both 3 / and 9 / to have the same value. We hope that this can be helpful for you the next time you need to quickly compare games!Â
Tracking scores across multiple games
If you happen to be bowling multiple games, either during practice or competition, sometimes it can be difficult to repeatedly sum and memorise 3 or even 4 digit total scores. Instead, we pick a counting system using a par value (similar to golf), or a base score from which we calculate the difference.Â
Most often, we pick the score of 200 to be the par. Let’s say we are bowling a 3 game series. If we score 225 on the first game, then are up or over 25 for the first game. If we continue to bowl a 197 on the second game, then we are now up 22 after the second game, and if we then bowl a 168, we are now down or under 10 after the third game.Â
We hope that this counting system is useful to you in tracking your scores!