Scoring in bowling is relatively straightforward but does have some interesting quirks. At its most basic, you record the number of pins that fell for each shot.
But when you mix in strikes and spares, things get a little more complicated.
Our article on bowling scoring walks you through the different factors that can affect a score, so take a look at that first if you don’t yet know much about that or are in need of a refresher.
Why Would You Use a Bowling Score Calculator?
At first glance the bowling score calculator may seem like an unnecessary invention in today’s environment. After all, don’t you always have the machine overhead that will do it for you, without even having to type anything in?
While this is true in the vast majority of alleys, the scoring system may go down. Or you may find itself at a very old-fashioned alley that doesn’t have automatic scoring. (Although this is harder and harder to find these days.) Also, if you’re lucky enough to get to bowl at a private lane somewhere, they may not have a commercial scorekeeping system like a full alley.
But there’s also another more important reason why it can be useful to use a bowling score calculator.
That is not for you to track your particular game’s score, but rather to see how different outcomes in various frames affect your score.
This can help you more quickly identify and understand things like how crippling open frames can be, how significantly a string of strikes can help an otherwise unimpressive score, and what you are likely to max out at given a particular score in the middle frames.
Experienced bowlers know these concepts from the many thousands of games they’ve bowled over the years, and playing with various scenarios on a calculator is a great way for you to increase this important type of bowling knowledge.
So now that we’ve (hopefully) convinced you that a bowling score calculator is worth your time, what are the best ones to use? You’ll see that you have two main options: online versions and smartphone app versions.
Online vs. App Bowling Score Calculators
When you’re looking for a calculator to use there are two main options: online versions and dedicated apps for your phone. There are several free online bowling score calculators that are very simple to use. These are some of our recommendations:
https://www.bowlinggenius.com/
https://www.sportcalculators.com/bowling-score-calculator
https://www.easycalculation.com/sports/bowling-score-calculator.php
You’ll see they all work basically the same way but have subtle differences that you may like or dislike, so one of them may work best with your personal preference.
There are also smartphone apps that can do quick score calculations. Be advised that bowling apps can do a whole lot more than the simple tallying of a score that we have been talking about; they usually are made to tally your scores over a period of time and give you key statistics and other ways to analyze and improve your game.
If all you are looking to do is play around with individual scores, then the web versions are certainly the easiest option.
But if some of the additional features sound good to you, then looking into a bowling score app will be well worth your time. Most are available for both Apple and Android (just search within your preferred app store. Most of the ones that you’ll encounter are free, although some have a premium version with more advanced features.
Below are some of the most useful apps out there:
We hope that this article has shown you the value in calculating a bowling score, and given you some appropriate tools to do it yourself. If you have any comments or questions, don’t hesitate to use the comment form below.
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