Monday answer
Gary Smyth
Tom is today's gold star reciepient.
Today's wood trivia is about bowling pins.
Nine pin bowling is the original form. (pins arranged in diamond shape) This is the answer I was seeking.
Ten pin bowling is the modern form. (pins placed in triangular shape)
In Texas if you want to play nine pin bowling there is a $150 annual tax to have a site. Most everywhere else, in America, nine pin was banned and the old form no longer played. Bowling establishments avoided the ban (people were spending too much time, drinking too much, and doing too much gambling on nine pin bowling so it was banned by the state) by adding a pin and changing the scoring.
Not all nine pin lanes are the same. Depending on where they originated and installed some have curves/swales at either edge, some are tapered from the drop zone to the pin area, and some have almost imperceptible wear lanes. These �little� deviations are considered as part (or maybe the art) of the game for their locale. Bowling clubs in Texas have what have been referred to as �country lanes�. That is, lane maintenance is left to the individual bowling clubs based on their own traditions. The amount of oil on the lanes may have significant variation. Another possible explanation is shifting foundations. Many of these clubs are located in rural areas. Foundations, floors, and/or pylons can expand or contract based on current drought or humidity conditions. A ball, which can be of varying diameter, rolled with a large amount of rotation can cause some lanes to develop reputations as being �crooked�.
The hand work mentioned in the trivia is performed by "pin" boys and girls. You have to be fast, accurate for pin placement, and be aware of bouncing pins and another ball coming at you before you return the first ball and clear the back zone. If you get hit by a flying pin you�ll know it. For all that work, in my era you got no pay and the voluntary �tip� was 10 cents a game. Today I couldn't climb up and down to the "bench" approx. 120 times a game if my life depended on it.
A �ringer� is when all of the pins are knocked down. A �redhead� is the pin in the center of the diamond that is painted red and figures in the scoring which is different than ten pin bowling. A "full house" is all nine pins in the set up position. A "poodle" is a gutterball (it is Texan for pudel (German) meaning a blunder or a miss).
Each frame is bowled with three balls. Not the same person has to bowl in each frame. There are right people, left people, and ringer people. In team play you bowl depending on where the remaining pins are after the first ball is thrown.
LAYOUT
First of all the pins are lined up much like 9 ball in pool, a diamond shape rack. The difference is that the pins are not touching but in fact are actually further apart than in ten-pin. The center pin or #9 pin is red in color and has a significant meaning in the scoring. Both 9-pin and 10-pin are the same width but in 9-pin the length is slightly longer.
Also in 9-pin the 1 or head pin, the 9 pin and the 8 pin are all lined up one behind the other. Also the corner pins in 10-pin (7 pin and 10 pin) are further back in the lane than are the side pins of 9-pin (4 pin and 5 pin), which are further up on the lane. The 9-pin rack lends itself to more splits than in 10-pin, which like in ten-pin are not good for scoring purposes, as a fact they are more costly in 9-pin.
Because there are no machines that set the pins automatically like in ten-pin, 9-pin uses pin setters to set up the pins and return the bowling balls.
TEAM MAKE-UP & GAME FORMAT
In 9-pin there are 6 bowlers and the game is 6 frames unlike in ten pin, which has 10 frames. The line up is not fixed in 9-pin like it is in ten-pin. The team captain or �caller� calls up the rotation on a frame to frame basis and he/she chooses which bowler starts and which bowler follows in the rotation. A team will bowl the first 3 frames on one lane then switch with the other team to the other lane to bowl the remaining 3 frames. For example if Team A is bowling against Team B on lanes 3 & 4, Team A will bowl the first 3 frames on lane 3 while Team B is bowling their first 3 frames on lane 4. The teams switch for the last 3 frames.
SCORING
Each bowler is given two balls to roll no matter what he/she scores on the first ball. A score of 9 is awarded for a �ringer� known as a strike in ten-pin, unless the red (9) pin is left by itself, then the score is 12 also known as a "ringer". That means a bowler may score a possible of 24 points per frame (very difficult). If however the bowler does not �ringer� on the first ball he/she then uses the second ball to spare (score 9 or 12). If the bowler does not score (clear the pins or leave the red 9 pin) then no score is awarded and the team captain/caller then calls on another bowler to finish the task by shooting at the remaining pins.
No score is awarded the team until the pins are all down or the red pin is left no matter how many bowlers it takes. The exception is on the last ball of the last bowler then however many pins are down is the score given. The score is a team score there are no individual scores even though the score is marked by the bowler who scored the points. The frame scores are added together resulting in the game score. All three games scores are then added together and the highest �series� counts towards another game win. If you won two games but lost one and the total of all three games is higher than the opponents teams then your final game score would be 3 wins and 1 loss.
Check out: Svjetski rekord u kuglanju or Sportkegeln 9 Pin Bowling on "YouTube"�a slightly different setup.
