: How does the scoring system work in bowling?

Question

: How does the scoring system work in bowling?

In: Other

Answer 1

The simple bit first – on each turn, you get two chances to bowl and you get a point for every skittle you knock down.

The bit that confuses people is that if you knock over all ten skittles in a turn (or frame as they are known in bowling), you get the chance to gain some bonus points.

If you bowl a spare (you knock over all ten skittles with two bowls), then you get bonus points equal to your next bowl (the first bowl on your next turn).
If you bowl a strike (knocking over all ten skittles with your first bowl in a frame) you get bonus points equal to your next two bowls.

So if you bowl a spare, followed by knocking down five skittles on your next turn, you get ten points for the spare, plus a bonus five for the next shot – 15 in total for that frame.

If you bowl a strike, followed by five skittles on the first bowl in the next frame, then four skittles on your second bowl, you get ten, plus five, plus four – 19 points.

The bit that confuses people is because a strike gives you a bonus equal to the next two bowls you make, if you bowl a strike in the next frame, your second bowl will be on the frame after that, so you can get ten points for your original bowl, an extra ten for your following turn, then another ten for the turn after that – a maximum of 30 points in total.

If you bowl a spare or strike on your final turn of the game, you get to take one or two extra shots after to determine how many bonus points you get on the last frames (but they only count as a turn in their own, they only count towards the bonus points)

So the maximum score you could get if you got a strike on every turn, plus a strike on the two extra shots will be 300 points (30 points for all ten frames of the game).