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Where Knowledge Junkies Get Their Fix
Okay, I’ll admit it… I took bowling in college. Since I lived in a dorm at a smaller school that was removed from the rest of the town, it was a nice way to get off-campus for a few hours each week. (And heck, I earned an A.) One of the things I remember from class is the following puzzle, which our instructor sprang on us during a written test. Enjoy!
During a standard 10-pin, 10-frame match,
Oscar bowled a 190, even though
he threw one nasty gutter ball and
didn’t bowl a single strike the whole match.How is this possible?
HERE is the solution.
Pages: 1 2
Actually, that doesn’t work.
He has to throw the gutter ball on his last shot. If he does it the way it’s posted here, he’d have an extra shot after his spare in the last frame, and an opportunity to score more points. But, he can’t throw a gutter ball here; he’s already gotten that out of the way.
It doesn’t matter what he got on his first shot, as long as he scored a spare on the first frame. From there, it’s nine-mark, nine-mark, until the tenth. In the tenth frame, he’d hit nine pins on his first shot, then pick up the spare on the second for 190. Throw a gutter ball on his last shot, and he’s closed out at 190.
posted by --Mike. on 11-21-2008 at 8:10 am
Sorry, Mike, but that doesn’t work. Oscar wouldn’t score 19 on the final frame if he rolled anything but a 9 on the last ball.
If he rolled a nine-one-zero as you suggest, his final score would be 181. He’d score 19 in the first 9 frames (for 171) and then 9+1=10 in the final frame, for 181. He needs that “9″ on the final ball to roll a 190, and by doing that, it shows that the gutter ball can ONLY be rolled on the very first ball of the game.
posted by Sandy on 11-21-2008 at 8:53 am
Wouldn’t the score come out to 199 then? Because if he got 19 for all 10 spares (190) wouldn’t the extra 9 rolled in the 10th frame make it 199?
posted by Kurt on 11-21-2008 at 10:15 am
Or maybe I’m not fully getting the rules. I guess that 3rd throw in the 10th frame serves only to complete the strike/spare, and not count as extra points? That would make sense.
posted by Kurt on 11-21-2008 at 10:22 am
That’s correct, Kurt. He only gets that last ball in the 10th frame if he strikes or spares in the 10th. So he’s scoring 19 points each frame (10 for the spare, plus 9 for the next ball). In the first 9 frames, the ‘next ball’ is in the next frame. In the 10th frame, the ‘next ball’ is awarded because of the spare. But it only counts once — so 19×10=190.
I know bowling scores are tricky, believe me. It was nearly 25 years ago I took the course, but I remember students having more trouble learning how to keep score than anything else.
posted by Sandy on 11-21-2008 at 10:29 am
I think you all have it wrong.
Sandy: Your answer would give 199, right?
If, he rolled this:
9/ -/ 9/ 9/ 9/ 9/ 9/ 9/ 9/ 9/9
Then he would have 190. The 10 from frame 1, and the 9 from the last roll in frame 10 would then make him have 190.
I don’t bowl very often, and I may have the rules not clear, but I think this is how it has to work. I also think that gutter ball could fall anywhere in the middle and still work.
posted by Vikter on 11-21-2008 at 10:31 am
Scratch my previous comment…I read up on the rules. Sandy, once again, is all knowing.
posted by Vikter on 11-21-2008 at 10:43 am
Hahaha — not hardly, Vikter. Now you know why they offered this class in college!
If he got the gutter ball anywhere in the match except for the first ball, then he’d miss the “extra” points for that spare. When you score a spare on ANY frame, you get 10 points for that frame plus the value of the next ball you roll (not the next frame, just the next ball).
So if he rolled a 9+1 spare in frame 1, and then a 0 for the first ball of frame 2, he’d only get 10 points for the first frame, not 19. (He’d get the 10 for the spare, but then zero would be added to that because of the gutter ball.)
Then his score would be
10+19+19+19… = 181.
posted by Sandy on 11-21-2008 at 10:45 am
My, what have I gotten myself into? :)
Here’s the breakdown:
/ means spare
FRAME SCORE DETAILS
1 0/ spare(10)+next ball(9)= 19
2 9/ spare(10)+next ball(9)= 19
3 9/ spare(10)+next ball(9)= 19
4 9/ spare(10)+next ball(9)= 19
5 9/ spare(10)+next ball(9)= 19
6 9/ spare(10)+next ball(9)= 19
7 9/ spare(10)+next ball(9)= 19
8 9/ spare(10)+next ball(9)= 19
9 9/ spare(10)+next ball(9)= 19
10 9/ spare(10)+final ball(9)= 19
If the gutter ball (the zero) were scored anywhere OTHER than on the very first ball, it would mess up the scoring. The only reason it doesn’t matter on the first frame is that the score on the first ball is NOT added to the score of a previous frame. So it doesn’t matter how he gets the spare on the first frame — it could be 0+10, 1+9, 2+8, whatever. But since we know he threw ONE gutter ball, the only way that could happen is if he threw 0+10 on the first frame (gutter ball, then a spare).
posted by Sandy on 11-21-2008 at 10:51 am
Until you actually score the game it seems like Sandy might be wrong. However he is right.
Now that most alleys automatically score the game, I think most people don’t know how to keep score. I think people get very dependent on the computer. Similarly, now that I play solitaire on the computer, I have forgotten how to set up the game with real cards.
My first computer program in High School was to score bowling given the number of pins knocked down on each throw. Quite a simple first program.
posted by Stew on 11-21-2008 at 11:18 am
This is why I only bowl at places that keep the score for me….
posted by Rick on 11-21-2008 at 1:08 pm
It made sense until Mike and Kurt chimed in. Now my brain hurts…
that could be from the 8 shots of Yeager I had at breakfast.
posted by rocket surgeon on 11-21-2008 at 1:44 pm
Yeah, Mike is right. That first frame doesn’t matter a lick how he gets the spare. He’s pick up nine points for it anyway if he knocked down nine on the first throw of the second frame.
1 2
0/ 9/
19
1 2
9/ 9/
19
completing the second through tenth frame in the same way would leave him with 181 and one bonus roll for picking up the spare. Nine more would be 190.
posted by Matt on 11-22-2008 at 12:32 am
I feel like the phrasing
“even though he threw one nasty gutter ball and didn’t bowl _a single strike_ the whole match.”
is conducive to the “yes, because he threw more than one strike” ploy as per what Lore Sjoberg would call “the misunderstood word puzzles”.
posted by capnmariam on 11-22-2008 at 6:03 pm
Sandy, I stand corrected. I had to map it out on a piece of paper (wasn’t pretty) but it turns out that you’re right. The gutterball has to happen on the first shot, not the last. Apparently, I didn’t carry the math out far enough.
Sorry ’bout that….
posted by --Mike. on 11-24-2008 at 9:31 am
No worries at all, Mike. It is really a tricky scoring system.
And, admittedly, I’ve made some errors in Brain Games past. In all honesty, it tickles me to have such a bright audience that challenges these sorts of things. I’ve learned a lot with these!
posted by Sandy on 11-24-2008 at 10:11 am
Rick, you took the words out of my gaping mouth.
posted by Joi on 12-9-2008 at 11:44 am