In other words, you’re trading away a pretty good chance of getting one pin, in exchange for a tiny chance of getting both. There might be some situations where that’s worthwhile (say, it’s the last frame, and you’re assured of second place in the tournament, but getting that second pin would put you into first, for the big prize money), but almost always, you’d be better off just taking the pin in the hand.
When I used to bowl (amateur, not even league) 2-3 times, I aimed for the 10 pin and missed it, the ball heading into the gutter. But then for some reason, the gutter spit it out and it bounced back onto the lane. At the last moment it hit the outside surface of the 10 pin.
The rules say that’s a miss, of course, but if this is purely a question of physics you might be able to pick up a 7-10 that way as well.
I don’t think a smaller ball is allowed. And if the ball was just falling into the gutter as it struck the 10-pin, then it would be moving left-to-right and wouldn’t be able to hit the far right side of the pin.
There’s something that might work, but I don’t think would be allowed in competition. As the ball falls into the right gutter, it will roll back and forth a little bit until it settles at the bottom. If you could time it just right, so the ball goes in the gutter a few feet before the pin, goes to the right and then back to the left, maybe you could hit the 10-pin that way.
Getting the 2nd pin would get you the spare, which actually can lead to 12 more points (vs. 1), so I think it’s often the correct decision to at least try for both. Games are rarely decided by a single pin.
Wouldn’t it be 11 more points, not 12? One point from getting a 10 this frame rather than 9, and 10 more points counting on the next frame from getting the spare?
It’s still probably usually not the right move, based on expected value: You’re looking at a less than 1% chance of getting (up to) 12 points, versus a near-100% chance of getting 1 point (I imagine that a pro bowler going for any single pin almost always gets it).
Even the robot bowler could not shoot such a shot with any degree of consistency. The precision required is beyond the physical balance of the lane and ball, leaving aside the human arm.
But the point is, the standard method for trying to get the 7-10 is just whacking one of the pins really hard only slightly off-target. It’s not significantly harder than just trying to get one pin.
Meanwhile, as explained in the video, for spares like “The Greek church”, the technique for reliably getting the highest score versus trying for the spare are quite different. Such that sinking the spare is rarer even than the 7-10, despite it actually being easier.
I picked up the 7-10 split once in my life and that was over thirty years ago. Damn I feel old.
Back when Earl Anthony was cleaning up in the pro bowlers tour, he came to his hometown of Tacoma for an exhibition match against some local bowlers. In one match, he got down by quite a bit. In the 7th frame, he got the dreaded 7-10 split and picked it up. Did the same in the 9th, but this shot was pretty dramatic. Hit the 7 and it bounced off the side wall and came spinning across the alley like a helicopter rotor. The pin barely bumped the other pin and it did a slow tip over for the spare. Finished with a Turkey in the 10th to win the game.
If you toss a pool ball down the edge of the lane it will get caught in the ball return and cause mechanical problems. Not to mention it’s against the rules. You’d need a ball that was tiny, literally the size of a pool ball, if you want to hit a pin to knock it straight across the lane.
If we’re looking for unorthodox ways to pick up the spare, you might as well run down the lane, pick up one pin and toss it at the other one. I bet that would work! 
(Just be careful, the oil on those lanes is very slippery, it’s hard to keep your footing.)
I grew up in Lakewood (before it was Lakewood). What alley was that exhibition at; I’d have wanted to go if I’d known about it.
I’m really unclear on what hard surfaces are directly behind the pins, but is it probable that some brands of pin setting machinery might make the 7-10 pick up easier than other brands or configurations? I’m picturing a bowling alley where the success rate might be much higher or lower than the average for another reason than the skill of the bowlers.
never mind
It was Pacific Lanes near 72nd and Pacific. The bowling alley is now gone. I bowled in a league at those lanes at that time. We were sponsored by Spuds Pizza which is still in business in the same area.
Yes, almost certainly. One of the things they pointed out in the video was that newer pin-setters have a heavy fabric (rubber?) curtain that is only attached at the top and hangs down loosely from those attachment points. Older models were attached at the top and the bottom, providing a bit more rigidity and making it more likely that the pin would bounce back towards the lane (and thus make it possible to pick up the split).
The idea of hitting one pin on either the inside (possible) or outside (impossible) and make it fly across to hit the other pin just doesn’t work. You can’t hit the pin “shallow” enough to make it do that from the outside, as explained above. And to bounce it off the wall from the inside you still have the issue of an irregularly-shaped object bouncing off a flat surface. I can’t imagine that the risk of missing the pin entirely (by aiming so shallow) would be worth the possible slight increase in odds of conversion vs. the “hit it as hard as you can slightly off-center” approach.
They covered that a bit in the video; people make the 7-10 more often than the Greek Church because bouncing the pin off the back of the pit doesn’t really carry any extra risk. I still wonder what would be the best approach if you had to make it.
Thanks. I didn’t get over to that part of the city very often; don’t remember a bowling alley there.
That bowling alley could be hard to find, it was on D Street, a block off Pacific. It was surrounded by houses and apartments. After the place shut down a few years ago, it was torn down and another apartment building went in. This Google maps view shows the bowling alley but it’s labeled as an apartment. The street view still shows the bowling alley but it is long gone and a new apartment building is standing there now.