It only take 12 strikes to have a perfect game. If you are the among the elite of the elite in bowling, and you have trained for hours every day for years, it shouldn't be that hard to get 12 strikes in a row. Especially since my amateur cousin who averages 80 can get the occasional turkey. So what's the deal? Why isn't every bowling world series not just everyone getting 300?
Posted Feb 11, 2022, 5:45 PM UTC
The margin of error on a perfect throw is quite small. The ball has to hit the correct location from the correct direction.
Now on the wood, there is actually oil applied that allows the ball to slide without grip for a while. The last part of the lane has no oil, that's why the bowling ball suddenly grips and turns towards the pins.
There are various patterns on how this oil can be applied to the lane to begin with, AND as more balls travel over the lane, the oil gets moved around by the balls. This means that even if you throw the ball exactly the same way twice in a row, one might be a strike and the next one might not be, because the amount of oil on the ball and where the oil is on the lane has changed.
why don't pro basketball players make every shot they take?
You cant get the best basketball players to make 12 shots in a row with any kind of consistency, its not easy to be 100% all the tine
Because it's just not that easy. 1 mm and the pin you strike hits another pin in a way that makes it miss the next pin entirely.
You're throwing a 12 lb ball 60 ft down an oiled lane
Because believe it or not people aren't machines and there are a ton of variables that determines just how the ball travels down the alley.
No matter how hard you practice, getting a strike requires an essentially flawless throw. Humans aren't very good at performing that flawlessly every single time.
Let's say you're so good that you can get a strike 90% of the time you throw.
If you do the math, that means you only have a 28% chance of a 300 game each time you play a game.
However, the fact that top bowlers get near-perfect scores so often means that the game is obviously too easy. I'd find it far more interesting if they made bowling harder to compensate, it'd make it more interesting. Maybe a longer lane?
Have you ever done anything that requires skill? Even machines can't replicate their movements perfectly 100% of the time
Professional bowlers aren't gods. They're just people like us, but they bowl more. No matter how much you bowl, 100% accuracy in a chaotic physical system is not possible. They just strive to get closer to 100% whenever possible.
Guess you've never heard the term "no one's perfect "
First, why "shouldn't* it be hard to do the single most difficult thing in a game? On some level, this is like saying "why can't basketball players always make their free throws?" or "why aren't golfers only ever hitting hole-in-one's?"
Bowling is a sport, and that means some things are really hard to do. Doing a hard thing over and over again is even harder, even under perfect conditions.
Let's pretend that we have a robot bowler who can throw the same ball every time, and that he has a 90% chance of getting a strike with each throw. The statistical probability of getting twelve strikes in a row, when each throw is 90% likely to get a strike, is less than 30%! Even if our robo-bowler has a 95% chance to get a strike with each try, the odds of getting twelve strikes in a row is only 54%.
Also, one thing that makes bowling a punishing sport points-wise is the scores stack, so just one non-strike really fucks up overall score.