Alternate Scoring - 1 game vs. opponent with similar average

[grumpter]

There is another player in my league who has had similar average to mine through the first 9 weeks of bowling. We were talking about a 1-off, 1-game bet but with alternate scoring. So the 'homework assignment' was to come up with a scoring system that would produce closer scores if 2 players bowled the same amount of strikes and spares for 1 single game. We are just trying to come up with an easy to follow system with similarities to the current system but again resulting in more similar scores for similar games as far as strikes and spares. The difference in overall score matters for the bet.

I was going to propose a system that counts 15 per strike plus the next ball with the 10th frame bowled the same as it is now with the exception that again strikes are worth 15. This would result in a max score of 315, aint gonna happen for us, since you could score 45 in the last frame with 3 strikes (25 for a strike and spare). At first I wasn't sure about the extra score in the last frame but the more I think on it the more I like the bonus for finishing strong.

I have an image of how this would score out with a few games of 6 strikes plus the rest 9 pin spares and/or 9 pin 12th ball but I can't get the file to upload. It is smaller than the max limit (less than 95kb) but it won't upload. It acts like it is uploaded but I don't think it actually gets uploaded. At any rate 6 different games with 6 strikes and the rest 9 pin spares would result in scores ranging from 245 to 255 rather than 200 to 246 with traditional scoring. So I tried to type it out by hand below. Hopefully I didn't make any math mistakes on the alt versions, the traditional scoring is confirmed as I checked using 2 separate scoring apps.

x x x 9/ 9/ 9/ 9/ 9/ 9/ x x x = 224 traditional, 248 alt
9/ 9/ 9/ 9/ 9/ 9/ x x x x x x = 235 traditional , 253 alt
9/ 9/ 9/ x x x x x x 9/9 = 246 traditional , 254 alt
x 9/ x 9/ x 9/ x 9/ x 9/x = 200 traditional , 245 alt
x x x x x x 9/ 9/ 9/ 9/9 = 245 traditional , 255 alt
x x 9/ x x 9/ x x 9/ 9/9 = 225 traditional , 250 alt

Can anyone poke holes in this alternate system for a 1-off game?

[Ryster]

Why not just use World Bowling scoring as an alternate?

[grumpter]

Why not just use World Bowling scoring as an alternate?

because I don't agree that the scores below would accurately show who bowled a better game

x 9- x 9- x 9- x 9- x 9- = 195
9/ 9/ 9/ 9/ 9/ 9/ 9/ 9/ 9/ 9/ = 190

But that did lead me to try another test with the traditional scoring versus the alternate one I listed earlier. I was kind of surprised that 5 strikes + 5 open frames can be a better traditional score than 8 strikes + 4 open frames.

x x x x x 9- 9- 9- 9- 9- = 183 traditional, 189 alt
x 9- x 9- x 9- x 9- x xxx = 172 traditional, 207 alt