How do you pick up the 7-10 split in bowling?
That’s it, really. I’m not an avid bowler, but I would like to know the mechanics of the 7-10 split.
I’m a righty and an infrequent bowler, but I try to hit the 10 with enough force that it knocks down the 7.
Thanks!
I’m not much of a bowler, but I believe the technique is to hit one of the pins on the outside so it will go across the lane and take out the other pin. Sounds simple enough in theory, but I usually end up either plonking the one pin dead on or throwing a gutter ball.
In my thirty plus years of bowling I have picked up the 7-10 split twice. Once I happened to clip the seven with just the right angle to bounce it off the wall of the lane. It then slowly rolled in a semi circle and knocked down the ten right before the sweep raked the lane clear.
The other time the seven bounced off the kick pad in the pit and bouced back out on the lane and right into the ten pin.
Both were strictly luck. I usually just shrug my shoulders and concentrate on getting one pin for the count. BTW way I am a right handed bowler and always go for the seven pin in those circumstances.
I am neither an avid nor particularly talented bowler, although I once bowled a 190. I have never picked up the 7-10 split, but I have picked up the 6-10 split. You just try to hit the outside of one the pins hard enough so that it spins across and knocks the other down.
True story: The only time I did this, I was bowling with my then-girlfriend and one of her female friends. As I was preparing to pick up the 6-10 split, my girlfriend said, ‘Rufus, if you knock them both down, we’ll have a threesome.’ I said, ‘you’re on!’ With this salacious incentive in the offing, I threw down perfectly and picked up my spare. Then I said, ‘what say we knock off early and head back to my place?’ My girlfriend said, ‘O we were just kidding. We didn’t even think it was possible!’ :mad:
I rarely bowl, and when I do, I suck. However, I once made a 7-10 split exactly as I intended. It has, thus far, been the crowning acheivement of my life. I bowled so that the ball would go in the left gutter at the very last second, clipping the 7 pin and knocking it all the way across to the 10. I was astonished when it worked.
No cite unfortunately, but having been a league bowler for many years, I think that Craneop2 has outlined the two most common ways to get the split with the “off the outside wall back across the deck” (ie, hit the target pin on the inside) being the more succesful approach. I have seen the “hit the target pin straight back into the kick pad and richochet it (usually by hitting hit a second time with the ball)” once, but seen the inside method several times. I have never seen it picked up by hitting the outside of the target pin (pravnik’s method), but obviously it can be done.
Prayer and luck have also been proven to be good techniques.
I remember watching (for many years) ABC’s Ten Pin Bowling Show hosted by Chris Schenkel. (Saturday afternoons around 3:00 pm)
During that time I have seen the 7-10 split converted twice. Mark Roth was the first to do it (maybe early 1980’s) and some years later John Mazza converted it. Perhaps ABC Sports might have a video (or even something on RealPlayer, FlashMedia, etc) of either - It’s a good place to search.
I remember the Mark Roth conversion was weird I think he went to the left of the 10 pin, it hit the wall, rolled back, balancing between the boards and the pit and then knocked the 7 pin down. Yes pretty weird - but hey - he got the spare.
Ridiculously obscure Stephen King reference -
“Always go for one! Who do you think you are, Billy Welu?”
Billy Welu ? Heck he goes back to the days of Don Carter.
I dunno how common a conditoin this is, but our local alley has several lanes that have a “bump” in the gutter. If you throw the ball correctly and enter the gutter right around where the pins are, you can bounce the ball out of the gutter and get a pin. The most I’ve ever done with that is 5 pins, incidentally.
Anyway, point is, that is my best advice - aim for the gutter and try and boune it out.
<— mechanic @ a bowling center for 15 years.
In general, you try to hit one pin hard enough to get it to bounce off two or more surfaces in the pit/kickback area and hope for the best. Which pin and the exact position to hit it vary with pinsetter/pinspotter manufacturer, lane surface, pin weight, etc.
Officially, a pin that hits the sweep/rake is out of play. Likewise, a ball is out of play once it leaves the lane surface (sorry Frank), though in leagues I have seen 10->wall->sweep->7 and 10->wall->ball-in-pit->7 allowed.
Rufus, the 6-10 is not a split. I suspect you mean either 4-10 or 6-7.
[QUOTE=pmh]
(sorry Frank)QUOTE]
Eh, figures…we even consider it “cheap” among my bowling buddies…
I have picked up exactly one 7-10 split in my life, which gives me a running count of 1 in 500 or so. That one, however, was quite possibly the coolest I have ever looked in my life.
I was bowling with my (now-ex) girlfriend, teaching her the basic concepts of the game (I am no star bowler by anyone’s standards, but I know the physics of it and I’m better than she was). On my first throw, I pitched a perfect 7-10 ball straight down the middle, and of course ended up with the split. “Now, there’s only one way to pick this up,” I said, and then, being completely facetious, added “just watch, and I’ll show you.” I stepped up to the line, fired away down the edge of the left gutter…and watched in amazement as my ball perfectly straddled the line, nicking the 10 just before falling in the gutter, and sending it flying into the 7 for the spare. Before I turned around again, I managed to wipe the look of awe off my face, and replaced it with one of utter indifference. I turned, looked at my girfriend, and with a shrug, said: “Yeah…that’s how you do that.”
Sadly, my mad skillz did not continue for the rest of the evening. But it’s all right…she knew I was full of shit anyhow 
I picked a 7-10 up this way. Trouble is, the scorer knew that once the ball is in the gutter, you don’t get a score if it bounces out.
my seven year old picked up a 7 10 TRUE!
( however, it was with kiddy bumpers to stop the ball going down the gutter. He deliberately threw a ball that bounced from side to side at least ten times, picking up the two pins on one bounce)
Heh, I guess our beloved Lincoln lanes (http://www.lincolnlanes.com) doesn’t have any modern scoring equipment. They just got overhead monitors this winter, as I recall…