In New England this is a non-issue because bowling has three shots per frame. Here, if you make the target on the third ball you just get a “ten box”, no bonus balls.
The current rules for bowling are actually based on three balls per frame. Strike = 2 extra, spare = 1 extra, that all comes from having three balls per frame.
Before I read the rules I was thinking how convient 3 balls per frame in both “sports”. Then got confused when all this talk of a max of 9 started. I think New Engjand style suits this format well. Might think about this for an event soon at The Sanctum
Oh and we have duckpin and candlepin here in the Connecticut part of New England @PinballNarcissist!
I like the idea of scoring 10 on the 3rd or 5th ball. More elegant, less explaining to do. A strike or a spare provide a substantial bonus over and above the 10.
Yeah, you could get into a weird state where you already have a 9 after 2 balls and ball 3 won’t gain you anything. I like the candlestick bowling rules and kind of wish real bowling was like that. Would make getting a split less shitty
OK so let’s say you get a spare on a game, in bowling you add the next frames’ first ‘roll’ score to that right? so like I get a spare on Frame 1 = 10 point score + the next ‘roll’.
To determine the score for the next frame, is it just what % of the target score I got? So let’s say the target is 10,000,000 and I get 5,000,000 on ball one and drain. That means I get a 5 on the first frame of the second frame right? That’s how I am doing it at my first pin bowling event next month 
Yes, that’s correct. It works pretty well! Keep your targets low, you want strikes and spares to happen!
Did you have to follow the PinGolf TGP formula since games weren’t played to completion?
There will be a similar style of system that we use.
There’s plenty of websites that calculate the average number of balls thrown in a game of bowling based on a given score between 1-300 . . . so we’ll just use that.
Yeah this hasn’t happened yet and is part of a series of tournaments upcoming so I’ll have to ask the IFPA to figure out the TGP for me. We will only have six ‘frames’ though b/c the location has six machines (and so that it won’t take so long) so frame six will be the equivalent of the tenth frame…
We’re running this for the first time tonight at Logan Arcade and I’m really excited!
He hasn’t been on here in a while, but I helped write up that rule set and you’re welcome to use it.