Five-pin Bowling - Gameplay

Gameplay

The balls in five pin bowling are small enough to fit in the hand and therefore have no fingerholes. At the end of the lane there are five pins arranged in a V. In size they are midway between duckpins and ten pins, and they have a heavy rubber band around their middles, similar to the pins used in the rarely seen "rubberband duckpin" form of duckpin bowling, to make them move farther when struck. Unlike any other form of bowling popular in North America, the pins in five-pin bowling are worth different scoring point values, depending on their location in the V-formation. The centre pin is worth five points if knocked down, those on either side, three each, and the outermost pins, two each, giving a total of 15 in each frame.

In each frame, each player gets three attempts to knock all five pins over. Knocking all five pins down with the first ball is a strike, worth 15 points, which means the score achieved by the player's first two balls of the next frame or frames are added to his or her score for the strike. They are also, of course, counted in their own frames, so in effect they count double. A player who takes two balls to knock all the pins down gets a spare, which means the first ball of the next frame counts double. When a bowler bowls two strikes in succession, within a game, the bowler has scored a "double". The count in the frame where the first strike was bowled is left blank until the bowler makes his or her first delivery of the next frame. When a double has been bowled, the count for the first strike is 30 points plus the value of the pins bowled down with the first ball of the frame following the second strike. When a bowler bowls three strikes in succession, within a game, the bowler has scored a "triple" (also called a "turkey"). In scoring three successive strikes, the bowler is credited with 45 points in the frame where the first strike was bowled. As in ten-pin, if either of these happen in the last frame, the player gets to take one or two shots at a re-racked set of pins immediately.

A perfect score is 450, requiring 12 consecutive strikes bowled in the same game without fouling. It does not happen as frequently as in tenpin bowling. The Canadian 5 Pin Bowlers Association sanctions from 15 to 30 perfect games annually.

Until 1967, an eastern Canadian bowler was required to knock down the left corner ("counter") pin to score any points, while a western bowler was required to knock down the right corner pin. The values of the pins were changed in the same year to the current values.

Five-pin bowling allows for more strategy in its play than the ten-pin variant, because of the differing point values for each pin. For example: If a player fails to score a strike in 10 pin bowling, it is less important how the player chooses to resolve the remaining pins, as all pins are valued the same, and knocking down more results in higher points. In 5 pin bowling on the other hand, if a player misses a strike, he or she has to make a strategic decision as to which set of remaining pins they should attempt to knock down (beyond simply trying for them all), which allows players a means to minimize their losses after a mistake, by aiming for the higher-scoring group of pins, or for the lower but perhaps more easily struck group.