The Game - Basics

[Pinboy]

The bowlinglane

The bowling lane is normally divided into five different sections. These sections are the players area, the approach, the lane, the gutter and the pins.
The players area is the space where a player waits on his turn to bowl. To throw your ball you need to step onto the approach, this is the runway to the lane where you can pick up momentum for delivery of the bowling ball. You need special bowling shoes with slide soles before you can step onto the approach. On the approach you can find different points, called 'dots', which are orientation points for the player on the approach. At the end of the approach you see a thick black line, called the foul line, and it marks the separation between the approach and the lane. You are not allowed to cross this line, else the throw is discarded due to a foul and you will see an 'F' on the screen.
The lane is made out of wood or synthetics and consists out of 39 boards. The lane has a length of 60 feet (about 18 meters), measured from the foul line to the head-pin. It consists out of different sections, which differ in smoothness from each other, so you can create hook. You can create hook because of the dressing on the lane. This usually is a fine layer of mineral based oil, which is also used as protection of the lane against any damage. The dressing is brought onto the lane with the help of a so called lane conditioner, which first strips (cleans) old dressing of the lane and then sprays a new dressing onto the lane. If a lane has a lot of dressing on it, it is called a fast lane. if the lane has little dressing on it, the lane is called a dry lane.
You can find all kinds of orientation points on the lane, namely the 'dots' and the 'arrows'. The 'dots' are the points at the beginning of the lane and usually there are eight of them. The 'arrows' can be found at about 12 feet on the lane and there are seven of them. On both sides of the lane you see a gutter, in which the ball falls if you don't keep it on the lane. The gutter transports the ball to the back of the lane without hitting a pin and the ball will then be brought back to the ball return for the next turn.
But the idea of bowling is to keep the ball on the lane, so that you can hit some pins. In total there are ten pins standing at the end of the lane which are set up in the shape of a triangle. If a right-handed bowler hits the head-pin on the right side, you have thrown your ball in the 'pocket'. Else if the bowler has hit the left side of the head-pin, he has hit the 'brooklyn'. This is vice versa for a left-handed bowler. After you have thrown your ball the rack will come down and the fallen pins are cleaned up. Until the rack goes up again you need to wait before you can throw another ball.

[Pinboy]

Bowlingballs can be made out of different materials: polyester, urethane, reactive resin or particle. Most sport bowlers use a reactive or particle bowling ball, while they use a polyester ball as an spare ball. You don't see urethane balls very often anymore, mainly because a reactive or particle bowling ball is a lot easier to bowl with. With a urethane ball you need give it more lift to let it hook. If the lanes are very dry you will see some players grab their urethane ball to bowl with it though.
Bowling balls come in different weight, from 6 lbs up to 16 lbs. It used to be that how heavier the ball was, the better it was. If the ball was heavy, the chance on deflection off the pins was smaller. Due to the arrival of reactive resin, it doesn't really matter anymore if you bowl with a 16, a 15 or even a 14 pound bowling ball. The deflection has become a lot less than it used to be with urethane balls. When you bowl, you should take a ball which is just heavy enough so that you can hold it with a stretched arm for 5 seconds without getting tired.
Inside a bowling ball you find the weight-block and this is a key factor in the amount of action and hook of a bowling ball. In a ball that should go straight you will see an ordinary round weight-block. If your bowling ball need to have more action and hook more, there is a more sophisticated weight-block in the bowling ball which makes sure that the ball has the most impact on the pins.
Usually there are three holes in a bowling ball, two for your fingers (your middle finger and ring finger) and one hole for your thumb. You can put your fingers in the bowling ball in two different ways, namely conventional and finger-tip. With conventional both your fingers go into the bowling ball almost entirely, while with finger-tip only the first part of your fingers go into the ball. The advantage of finger-tip over conventional is that with finger-tip you can lift the bowling ball much better, which creates more action and hook on the bowling ball.


Conventional (l)

http://img156.imageshack.us/img156/4364/conventionaldm3.png


and finger-tip (r)

http://img389.imageshack.us/img389/2738/fingertipfo8.png



Sometimes you also will see a fourth, non-gripping, hole in the bowling ball. This is usually the balance hole, which makes sure that the ball drilling will come back into ABC regulations. The balance hole can also be used to increase or decrease a ball's reaction and to fine tune a more subtle change in ball reaction.

[Pinboy]

A bowler will usually use an approach to create momentum for delivery of the bowling ball. In this way he will create speed on the bowling ball without really using his muscles, except if you are a cranker. He just creates speed with is arm swing during his approach on the runway.
There are many different sorts of approaches, varying from one step up to six or even more steps. The four-step approach is the most used approach among bowlers, although five steps are also popular. With a four-step approach, the first step is the 'push away'. Here you step forward with your starting foot (right if you are right-handed, for left-handed vice versa) and at the same time you will push the bowling ball forward. During the second step, sometimes referred by as the 'prozone', you let your ball swing backward while you are moving your other foot forward (left for right-handers, right for left-handers). The third step is the 'pivot step'. During this step the ball is still swinging backwards until your swing reaches its highest point. Meanwhile you are moving your other foot forward again, just like you are walking down the street. The fourth and final step is the 'slide'. Here your swing must be in a forward motion and also you must slide with your foot towards the foul line. At the end of this step you must have released the bowling ball onto the lane and do a 'follow-through' right after you have released the ball. This will help you aim better by letting your arm swing further into the direction you are aiming.

http://img156.imageshack.us/img156/4899/approachds6.png

http://img156.imageshack.us/img156/3554/approach1wu9.png

[Pinboy]

With a five-step approach there is a step added at the beginning. This is a very small step, called the 'power step'. You just take a very small step with your 'new' starting foot (left for right-handers, right for left-handers). This step has the function to get the bowler easier into motion. After the power step you will do the same steps as in a four-step approach.
An important aspect of the approach is the timing. This is the relationship between your arrival at the approach and your release. You can have an early, a normal and a late timing. At an early timing you release the bowling ball at the beginning of the slide. At a normal timing the bowler will release the ball during his slide. At a late timing you release your ball almost at the end of your slide or even after your slide is over. Strokers will tend more towards an normal/early timing, while crankers will tend more towards a late timing

[Pinboy]

One game at bowling consists out of a maximum of 12 frames. The first 10 frames are normal frames, whereas the last two frames are bonus frames which can be earned in the 10th frame. In a frame you get two chances to bowl over all ten pins. When you do this in one try, you have bowled a strike. If you need two turns to bowl over the pins, you have got a spare. When you don't bowl over all pins in two turns, it is called a miss.
A strike is marked with a 'X'. This counts as ten points plus the result of the next two turns. So if you strike in the first frame (see Mikey's game in the example below) and in the next frame you bowl 7 and 1, you will get 18 points in the first frame. Ten for the strike plus 7 and 1 for the next two turns. Frame two will get a score of 18 (from the first frame) plus 8, which makes 26 points.
A spare is marked with a '/'. This counts as ten points plus the result of the next turn. So if we look at the example again, we see that Janet had bowled a 2 spare in the second frame. In the next turn she bowled a one. So her score in frame two became 9 (from the first frame) plus 10 from the spare plus one (the next turn), which made 20. In the next frame she bowled a miss, so the score was now 23. Lee bowled two misses, so he earned no bonus.

[Pinboy]

http://img389.imageshack.us/img389/496/scorefz0.png

As mentioned earlier, you can earn two bonus frames in frame 10. If you bowl a strike you will get two bonus turns, if you bowl another strike in frame 11 you may bowl your last turn in frame 12. So this game will consist out of 12 frames. If you don't bowl a strike in frame 11 or you bowl a spare in frame 10, the game will consist out of 11 frames. If you bowl a miss in frame 10, you won't get bonus frames and the game will consist out of 10 frames of course.
While you can bowl a strike or a spare, you can also bowl a split. A split is combination of pins in which the headpin is down and the remaining pins have one or more intermediate pins down immediately ahead or behind them. This is usually marked with a 'S', another colour or with reversed video. There are 459 different sort of splits, of which the 7-10 combination is one of the difficult ones to spare.