# Could you manually keep score of a game of bowling if you had to?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-manually-keep-score-of-a-game-of-bowling-if-you-had-to/588454
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [July 9, 2011, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-manually-keep-score-of-a-game-of-bowling-if-you-had-to/588454 "2011-07-09T22:59:12Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@The\_Devil\_s\_Grandmother](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Devil_s_Grandmother)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2011, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-manually-keep-score-of-a-game-of-bowling-if-you-had-to/588454/21 "2011-07-10T03:19:54Z")
> [@iamthewalrus\_3](#):
>
> The entire concept of playing a game and not understanding how it’s scored is alien to me. I guess if you just like rolling balls into stuff and knocking it over.
And beer. Never forget the beer.
I can keep score on paper, but my arithmetic skills or poor, so I’d rather let someone else do it.
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### Author:  [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2011, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-manually-keep-score-of-a-game-of-bowling-if-you-had-to/588454/22 "2011-07-10T03:23:16Z")
My parents made my brother and I do all the paper scoring when we were kids. So yes it’s childishly easy.
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### Author:  [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2011, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-manually-keep-score-of-a-game-of-bowling-if-you-had-to/588454/23 "2011-07-10T03:23:45Z")
Oh, yeah. No problem.
I started bowling when I was 12. Had to quit when I was 38 because of arthritis. Just started back again about 3 months ago because the new meds have reduced my symptoms to zero.
Man, I love bowling.
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### Author:  [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hilarity_N.Suze)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2011, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-manually-keep-score-of-a-game-of-bowling-if-you-had-to/588454/24 "2011-07-10T03:38:02Z")
Wow, it must be a long time since I’ve gone bowling…they do this automatically now?
It’s not like it’s hard. Scoring bridge–that’s hard. And NEVER done automatically (or am I just playing with the wrong people?).
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### Author:  [@ZenBeam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZenBeam)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2011, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-manually-keep-score-of-a-game-of-bowling-if-you-had-to/588454/25 "2011-07-10T03:38:11Z")
> [@markdash](#):
>
> What I meant is you don’t automatically add the next 2 rolls to a strike in the 10th frame. The 10th frame has its own rules.
Buot you _do_ add the next two rolls to a strike. The rules haven’t changed.
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### Author:  [@Student\_Driver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Student_Driver)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2011, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-manually-keep-score-of-a-game-of-bowling-if-you-had-to/588454/26 "2011-07-10T04:24:50Z")
I can, mostly because I picked up the scoring rules from playing various bowling games on consoles and computers over the years. The most aweXome? Access Software’s _10th Frame_ for various 8-bit systems, most notably the Commodore 64. Atari’s _Bowling_ for the 2600 and the bowling sim published in David Ahl’s _Basic Computer Games_ in the 1970s also helped.
Last time I went bowling with manual scoring? ~2005, at Bubba’s Bowling Alley, Indianapolis, a combination bowling alley and indie music venue. It was a completely manual bowling alley, with pinboys to reset the pins!
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### Author:  [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2011, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-manually-keep-score-of-a-game-of-bowling-if-you-had-to/588454/27 "2011-07-10T04:45:05Z")
Haven’t been bowling in years…er, decades, but of course I could keep score. There are computers for this now? Do the computers bowl for you, too? What is the world coming to?
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### Author:  [@markdash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markdash)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2011, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-manually-keep-score-of-a-game-of-bowling-if-you-had-to/588454/28 "2011-07-10T05:29:58Z")
> [@ZenBeam](#):
>
> Buot you _do_ add the next two rolls to a strike. The rules haven’t changed.
I see what you’re saying. I always looked at it as the 10th frame was different, where if you picked up a spare or strike you would get a total of 3 rolls in the 10th, then add them all together.
You’re saying the 10th is just like every other frame, except you get a “bonus” roll or two to make up for the fact that there’s no 11th or 12th frame.
Six of one, one half dozen of another.
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### Author:  [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2011, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-manually-keep-score-of-a-game-of-bowling-if-you-had-to/588454/29 "2011-07-10T05:58:28Z")
I marked no, but if I really had to and was willing to do some puzzling (I know a perfect game is 300, so how would this break down in terms of the number of frames) but frankly that’s too much effort. When I bowl, it’s because there’s pizza and beer and friends to hang out with. I don’t always even look at the electronic scoreboard because that’s not my focus.
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### Author:  [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2011, 8:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-manually-keep-score-of-a-game-of-bowling-if-you-had-to/588454/30 "2011-07-10T08:03:19Z")
My bowling glory days were the 1970s, and I often kept score. It’s been 20 years since my last game, and that one was almost 20 years since the previous one before that.
Durned newfangled technology ruining people’s fun, grumble, grumble.
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### Author:  [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2011, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-manually-keep-score-of-a-game-of-bowling-if-you-had-to/588454/31 "2011-07-10T12:12:19Z")
> [@markdash](#):
>
> I see what you’re saying. I always looked at it as the 10th frame was different, where if you picked up a spare or strike you would get a total of 3 rolls in the 10th, then add them all together.
>
> You’re saying the 10th is just like every other frame, except you get a “bonus” roll or two to make up for the fact that there’s no 11th or 12th frame.
>
> Six of one, one half dozen of another.
The way I’d express it is that the extra roll or two you might get in the tenth frame are _only_ scored as the completion of the scoring of the spare or strike in the tenth, but don’t count in any other way. (i.e. there’s no eleventh frame.)
At any rate, I’ve hardly bowled _since_ electronic scoring became the norm, so paper-and-pencil scoring is pretty much all I’ve known. And it’s not like there’s anything particularly tricky about it; I could still do it in my sleep after all these years.
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### Author:  [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2011, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-manually-keep-score-of-a-game-of-bowling-if-you-had-to/588454/32 "2011-07-10T12:36:22Z")
> [@Lynn\_Bodoni](#):
>
> I’d probably need to refresh my memory, but I used to be able to do it.
Same…I’ve never bowled in an alley that had electronic scoring - it’s been just under 15 years since I bowled at all, of course. I have no idea if they’ve added electronic scoring or not… Or even whether they still exist.
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### Author:  [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2011, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-manually-keep-score-of-a-game-of-bowling-if-you-had-to/588454/33 "2011-07-10T14:12:04Z")
Heck, I don’t even bowl regularly - maybe once every four or five years - but I could keep score on paper if I had to. I guess it’s from all that time I spent hanging out at the bowling alley in my youth when mom and dad were in a league.
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### Author:  [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2011, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-manually-keep-score-of-a-game-of-bowling-if-you-had-to/588454/34 "2011-07-10T14:41:48Z")
There’s a machine that could do it for me? It seems as complex as planning a transit to Pluto.
Er, no.
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### Author:  [@chaoticbear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chaoticbear)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2011, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-manually-keep-score-of-a-game-of-bowling-if-you-had-to/588454/35 "2011-07-10T18:17:04Z")
Absolutely, except for those situations where I’ve left, say, the 2 and 8 standing and I don’t see one pin behind the other.
Do I still get the light-up display that tells me what’s left?
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### Author:  [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2011, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-manually-keep-score-of-a-game-of-bowling-if-you-had-to/588454/36 "2011-07-10T18:48:23Z")
> [@chaoticbear](#):
>
> Absolutely, except for those situations where I’ve left, say, the 2 and 8 standing and I don’t see one pin behind the other.
That’s when you had to keep your eyes on the pins after you tried to pick up the spare, or watch for how many pins fell when the lane sweeper knocked 'em down at the end of the frame.
I thought I had a lot of spares made for sure, until I saw the sleeper appear after knocking down all the visible pins…
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### Author:  [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2011, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-manually-keep-score-of-a-game-of-bowling-if-you-had-to/588454/37 "2011-07-10T19:50:56Z")
Yeah, I think I still could. For some reason this skill was taught in one of my phys-ed classes - even though our school didn’t have a bowling alley.
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### Author:  [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2011, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-manually-keep-score-of-a-game-of-bowling-if-you-had-to/588454/38 "2011-07-10T20:14:48Z")
Without a doubt. My first ever (unofficial…I was underage) job was keeping score at the [Gable House Bowl](http://www.gablehousebowl.com/) in Torrance, California. I did it for about 3 years on tournament nights (four nights per week). Dad wouldn’t let me go past 9PM, though so I just did the 6PM and 7:30PM games. Made between $20 and $30 per night.
The worst was green stamp nights. There were colored pins mixed in with the white ones. If particular combinations came up (front three, 7-10, whatever) the player would be eligible to win a certain number of green stamps if they tossed a strike. I had to keep track of those and alert the referees when the pin machine laid out the pins and a lucky set came up.
For a while I was, no kidding, seeing those damned scores in my sleep. Oy.
In short, I have scored more games than I have EVER bowled.
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### Author:  [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2011, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-manually-keep-score-of-a-game-of-bowling-if-you-had-to/588454/39 "2011-07-10T22:50:26Z")
I learned to score bowling before I could even bowl. I had one of [these wind-up bowling games](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LdCbPOyCAo), when I was around 7 or 8 years old, and I used to pester my neighbor to to teach me how to score. At first, he just taught me how how to notate the score, but not how to add it up. So I used to run back home, play a few rounds, make the proper notations on my score sheet, and then run to my neighbor and have him score it. After multiple back-and-forths in the same day, he finally refused to answer his door when I came around, so I left my score card under a rock on his stoop. I came back an hour or so later to find the score card under that same rock filled out and added up. 🙂
Said neighbor figured out if he wanted any peace, he’d have to teach me how to add up the frames, so he did it soon afterwards. And, since then, I will forever remember how to score bowling. All thanks to Mr. Ralph.
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### Author:  [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)
#### Post date: [July 11, 2011, 7:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-you-manually-keep-score-of-a-game-of-bowling-if-you-had-to/588454/40 "2011-07-11T07:06:59Z")
While bowling alleys have pretty much handled it themselves since as long as I can remember, of course I know how to do it. If I encounter something that doesn’t seem to make sense, I will at least give a shot to learning how it works.
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