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So how do I get a strike?

As stated in a previous article, for right-handers, the ball should enter the 1-3 pocket proceed through the pins and knock down the 5 and the 9 pins.  The rest of the pins fall like dominos, being hit by the 1, 3 or 5 pin.  Here is how it works, the 1 hits the 2 which hits the 4 which hits the 7.  The 3 pin hits the 6 which hits the 10 pin; the 5 pin hits the 8.  That’s it!  That means all ten are down; a strike!  In the picture below, the pin movement is shown by the black arrows and the ball movement by the blue.

As you can see, getting a strike is simple, right?  Well, no!  If you have ever setup dominos in some sort of pattern so that they will tumble inline, you probably notice that if you get one off a little, they stop falling.  The same is true in bowling.  But in this case the pins (dominos) are in the right place.  Here the ball has to hit two sets of dominos.  And if after hitting one “set” correctly the ball has to hit the next “set” correctly for the job to get done.  In order for it to do this, the ball must not deflect.  This makes the angle of entry to the 1-3 “pocket” critical.  And there is one other problem.  If the lack of deflection or the “drive” of the ball is too great, it will drive through the 1-3 and hit the 5 square on and miss the 9.  So since there is nothing else to hit it you will leave the 9 pin and maybe others too.  This can be seen from time to time with the high hooking pros.  In all cases if the location of the initial hit is not correct, one of the pins may not do its job and mess-up the strike combination.

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