I found this link quite interesting about possibilities.
http://www.egr.msu.edu/~drazkows/bowlprob.htm
Indeed it is. But of course, you could get
9- | 11 | then gutter balls for an 11. And so on for higher scores.
Although if you are in New England and bowling Candlepins, in which your bowl three balls a frame, the way to get the scores from l to 300 is a whole different story. Of course the higher scores are just about impossible. I don’t know what the highest score on record is these days, but when I was bowling it was less than 200.
True, but to clarify the “looks like a 12” to me posts, you forgot to add the pin from the second frame. In other words your scorecard would have 11 for the first frame, and 1 for the second frame, for a total of 12.
- yes, it was a :smack:
- the - was meant as a dash, not a negative sign. :smack: My best score ever was 134.
Obviously, you haven’t seen me bowl.
Yes, but once you make that second strike in frame 10 you are finished. You never throw another ball in that game. Here is the scoring of the game in your question.
Frame 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Score x x x x x x x x x xx = 300
Oops. That 10th frame should have three strikes in it. Your score is 299.
As a former bowler…several nights a week for many years, and also as a former bowling center employee, from mechanic behind the machines to front desk and manager, I’ve probably seen every score possible.
When I managed on Saturdays and Sundays when the kids were bowling on the junior leagues, I saw the final scores from 1 to 10 come up occasionally.
A friend of mine who is a really good bowler shot his first 300 on a Sunday night, while substituting on our team. Two days later, he shot 11 strikes in a row and then chunked the ball out for a 3-count and got a 293. (Since then, he’s shot a couple each of 298, 299 and 300).
ABC (American Bowling Congress) and WIBC (Women’s International Bowling Congress) awards a ring for a 300, 299 or 298.
We used to give a pin to league bowlers who shot a 299…we always told them it was the pin they left standing, but once the machine was reset, it was a 1 in 20 chance that it was the actual pin if we even pulled it out of that pinsetter. 
Forgive me if I misunderstood your post but it sounds like you’re implying that you only get to throw two balls in the tenth frame. If you get either a strike or a spare, you get to throw a third ball. The only way to end up just being able to throw two balls in the tenth frame is if you have an open frame.
Here I was hoping Hockey Monkey bumped this to post a new high score.
When I first started bowling at age 5 I didn’t know anything about bumpers (which might not have existed back then) or the bowl-from-below method. My first game I got a 2 on. From ONE ball.
Hi and welcome. Just to let you know, you responded to a six year old post that was written by a man who died a couple of years ago.
And if he replied we would have our first real zombie thread!
And who actually corrected his own mistake in the very next reply. How did the person bumping this thread miss that? 
Yes, I did misunderstand his post. The line “Oops. That 10th frame should have three strikes in it. Your score is 299.” threw me off as well because it accidentally came off like it was possible to get a 299 with a tenth frame turkey so my point of reference was a little off. I wasn’t trying to be a semantic asshole or anything.
This site (All About Bowling Scores) has everything you’d want to know and more about bowling scores, including the number of ways that exist to obtain every possible score. The only scores with only one way to obtain them are 291 and above, which require you to miss some pins on your 12th ball. Also, the most common score to obtain probabilistically is 77.
Cool! I’m glad the thread was revived just for that link. 
I bowled a 301 once.
Not saying how many games that took.
Ditto. Although some of the math issues in this thread gave me a headache.