How Bowling Scoring Works: Strikes, Spares and the Tenth Frame

The basics: frames, balls and the tenth frame

A full game is ten frames, bowled by each player in turn. Frames 1 through 9 give you two balls each, unless your first ball is a strike, which ends that frame early. If you do not clear all ten pins in those two balls, USBC’s own scoring guide has a name for it: a "Miss or Open." The tenth frame is different: a strike or a spare there earns extra balls, called fill balls, so the bonus a strike or spare earns still has somewhere to come from, even on the last frame of the game.

• Ten framesA complete game of American tenpins is ten frames, each bowled in regular order.
• Two balls a frameFrames 1 through 9 give you two balls to knock down all ten pins, unless the first ball is a strike.
• Miss or OpenUSBC’s own term for a frame that does not clear all ten pins in two balls. You still get to add any pins you did knock down.
• The tenth frame’s fill ballsA strike in the tenth frame earns two fill balls; a spare earns one. Those extra balls complete the strike or spare bonus for that last frame.

Strike and spare bonuses

Frame 1 in the worked game below is a strike. Frame 2 knocks down 7 pins then 2 more, so frame 1 scores 10 + 7 + 2 = 19.

Frame 3 is a spare (9 pins, then 1 to clear the rest). The next ball, the first ball of frame 4, knocks down 10 pins, so frame 3 scores 10 + 10 = 20.

Two strikes in a row is a double; three in a row is a triple, or turkey. Frame 4 and frame 5 are back-to-back strikes, a double. Frame 4’s bonus is the next two balls, both from frame 5 and frame 6: 10 and 6, for 10 + 10 + 6 = 26. Frame 5’s own bonus looks at the first two balls after it, 6 and 2, for 10 + 6 + 2 = 18.

A full game, scored frame by frame

Rolls shown as the score sheet marks (X = strike, / = spare).

This game opens with a single strike, an open frame, and a spare, then frames 4 and 5 string together a double before another open frame. Frame 7 is a single strike, frame 8 a spare, frame 9 an open frame, and the tenth frame closes with a spare and a 7-pin fill ball. The final score is 162.

USBC’s own worked example

USBC’s own "Keeping Score" page walks through a complete game of its own, frame by frame. Here it is as a table.

From USBC’s own "Keeping Score" page (bowl.com/keeping-score). USBC’s walkthrough ends at 150.

Score sheet symbols

A split is usually marked with a circle around the pin numbers, but the rulebook allows any symbol a center chooses.

The tenth frame in detail

The tenth frame follows the same scoring formulas as every other frame; it just carries its own fill balls so a strike or spare still gets its full bonus. If you do not strike or spare, the frame ends at two balls like any open frame. A spare earns one fill ball; a strike earns two.

In the worked game above, frame 10 is a spare (9 then 1) with a 7-pin fill ball, scoring 10 + 7 = 17.

Twelve strikes in a row, not ten, make a perfect game. Frames 1 through 9 each need a strike, and the tenth frame needs a strike plus two more strikes as fill balls, for 12 in total.

Current frame scoring: how World Bowling’s method differs

USBC and World Bowling’s own baseline rules both use the traditional scoring above, where a strike or spare waits on the balls that follow it. World Bowling has also used a separate method for some events, called current frame scoring, where a frame’s score is fixed the moment it is bowled and never changes afterward.

• StrikeA flat 30 points, no matter what the next two balls are.
• Spare10 plus the pins from that same frame’s own first ball, not the next frame’s.
• Open frameScores the same way in both systems: the pins you actually knocked down.

Current frame scoring also has no fill balls: every frame, including the tenth, is just two balls unless the first ball is a strike. A current frame perfect game is ten strikes, not twelve, since each of the ten frames is already worth the maximum 30 on its own.

Both columns use the worked game’s rolls. Under current frame scoring the game ends after frame 10’s 9 and 1, because there are no fill balls, so frame 10’s 7 counts only in the traditional column. Traditional finishes at 162; current frame scoring finishes at 201.

The totals can differ, but they are not always different. A strike frame scores the same 30 in both systems when the next two balls knock down 20 pins, and some whole games total the same: ten open frames of 7 and 2, for example, score 90 under either system, since an open frame counts the same way both times. Because current frame scoring always credits a strike the full 30 right away, while a traditional strike’s value depends on the next two balls, the two running totals pull apart whenever a strike’s next two balls knock down fewer than 20 pins. Neither total is "wrong"; they are two different ways of crediting the same rolls.

Perfect game and other named scores

A few scores and strike runs have their own names. Our full glossary has more than 300 bowling terms; here are three that come up when talking about scoring.

• Perfect gameTwelve strikes in a row for a score of 300, with every frame worth the maximum 30 points.
• TurkeyThree strikes in a row.
• Dutch 200A score of exactly 200, made by alternating strikes and spares the whole game.

See the full entries for perfect game, turkey and Dutch 200 in our bowling terms glossary. For how rare a 300 actually is and other notable scores, see our guide on the highest score in bowling.

Handicap, in brief

Handicap adds pins to a bowler’s score to let bowlers of different skill levels compete on a more even basis. It is a league-level setting, not a sitewide or universal formula: under USBC’s own rules, each handicap league sets its own basis, usually each bowler’s average, and its own percentage, with 100 percent as USBC’s default unless the league’s own rule says otherwise. Check your own league’s rules for the basis and percentage it actually uses before assuming a number from somewhere else applies.

Questions bowlers ask

Sources and method

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