So, I bowl. Well, I guess the proper thing to say is “I drink beer, and sometimes I decide to toss a bowling ball at some pins.”
I’m currently on a 3 person league, sanctioned, and none of us are really that good. Our averages are between 125 and 145. Since we’re not that good, and we like to drink, it got sorta depressing that a beer frame was a very rare thing to see with us. It’s amazing enough if one of us knocks em all down, but two of us? We had to come up with more ways for us to be forced into buying beer. (I guess buying beer to drink beer is a reason in itself, but it’s fun to throw some competition in there).
So, here’s how we play it… Since we have a lot of rules, all of these count as a 1/2 mark towards a beer frame:
The Traditional – (obvious) – You’ll get a 1/2 mark if you don’t get a strike during a frame, but your other teammates do. You suck.
The Suck Streak – Score up a 1/2 mark if you have 4 consecutive open frames. Once you hit 4 in a row, you reset your sucky-ness, and you’ve got another 4 frames of suck before you’re at risk again.
Breakin’ the Hot Streak – This is the only one we take seriously enough to bestow a full beer frame on. First, the team must establish a ‘hot streak’, which for us losers, is 2 complete frames without any open frames. The start of a hot streak doesn’t always have to be the first bowler on the team. If my 3-person team throws 6 spares in a row at any time (strikes count too, but who are we kidding?) – then we’re in a ‘hot streak’. First person to suck things up for everyone, throw an open frame, and let our team down? Full beer frame. Go to hell.
The Choke – If you spare the previous frame, and on your next frame, your first ball knocks down 3 or less pins – you’re on the hook for a 1/2 beer frame, unless you can pick up your spare. I mean, comon, every pin is counting double, and you can’t even frickin hit the head pin? Jackass. (This rule also applies if your previous frame is a strike, and you amazingly only knock down 3 or less pins in your next TWO balls – bastard.)
The Party Foul – Also known as the ‘Jackass’, you’ll get a 1/2 beer frame for any type of bowling infractions… What have I seen in the last month that counts towards this? Bowling on the wrong lane, breaking the foul line, falling over the foul line, smacking the pin-setting gate, … The list goes on. (These normally don’t happen on the first or second game, as you can probably tell.)
The Miracle – Turkey? From us? Well, yea, it’s happened a couple times. Score 3 strikes in a row, take away a 1/2 beer frame mark. Each strike after that, remove another 1/2. (So, 5 strikes in a row – besides usually being accompanied by a lightning strike – would wipe out 1.5 beer frame marks). And, no, you can’t go negative. Stick at zero.
Then, how we do this… At the end of each day, we tally up the marks to determine who’s buying the pitchers the next week. Depending on how quick you drink and how many people are on the team, we usually will put a max limit any one person has to buy, and we subtract a full frame from everyone until one person has zeros. (If we have a 3, 2.5, and a 1 – We would most likely decide that it would be 2, 1, and 0 – third person drinks free!)
We also play wild variations on card games while we play, as well as some special rules, including the most-feared – The Nut Kick. Will leave that for another day.
