Bowling Score
Most, if not all bowling centers have automatic bowling scorers that display your bowling score on a screen above your lane. It helps keep track of your score so that you don’t have to do it manually. However, if you want to figure out how to keep track of your bowling score manually, you'll be able to do it after reading this page. Sometimes keeping your own bowling score can be fun!
A bowling game consists of ten frames. If you look at the screen above your bowling lane, you will notice ten boxes. Each of these box represents one frame.
For each frame, you get two tries to knock down all ten pins. Obviously, you want to knock them all down the first try. If you do, you will get a strike. This is represented by an “X” in the frame.
Once you get a strike, the frame is over and the next bowler gets to bowl. However, if you don’t get a strike and some pins are still standing, you will be given another chance to knock down the pins that are left standing. If you knock them all down the second try, you will get a spare, which is represented by a “/” in the frame.
If there are pins left over after the second try, you get what is called an open frame. With an open frame, you will only get points for the number of pins you knock down during that frame.
Bowling Score: How a spare is counted
When you get a spare, you get 10 points PLUS the number of pins knocked down on your next try. You will notice that once you get a spare, your bowling score is not totaled until your next bowl. This is because in order to calculate the score, the automatic scorer needs to add the number of pins you knock down on the next throw to the previous spare to get the total so far. Let me give you an example. Let's say you bowl a spare on the first frame and follow that with an 8 on the first try in the next frame. Your first frame is now worth a total of 18 points since you get 10 points for a spare PLUS the number of pins you knock down on the first try in the next frame.
Bowling Score: How a strike is counted
For a strike, you get 10 points PLUS the number of pins you knock down the next two tries. If you get a strike and follow that with a 7 and then a 3, you will get a total of 20 points for the frame you have a strike on. Here’s the math: 10 (strike frame) + 7 (next try) + 3 (next two try) for a total of 20. The total of your bowling score is equal to the total of all the frames put together after 10 frames. There is an exception in the final frame. If you get a spare in the final frame, you have to bowl one more time to determine how much that spare is worth. If you get a strike in the tenth frame, you will need to bowl two more times in order to find out how much that strike is worth.
As you can see by the way bowling scores are calculated, it rewards you for getting consecutive strikes and getting the most pins after a spare. In a game, you may have knocked down more pins than your opponent, but your score may be less. This is because if you get consecutive strikes, you score a lot more points.
