Help!!
Sure, what do you need help with?
What are all those fields on the screen when I'm trying to add my score??
Here's the breakdown:
- Stance - This is the board you start out standing on. I have a piece of tape on my left shoe, right around my big toe area, that I use to line up.
- Target - This is your target board, usually somewhere around the arrows, though some people use the dots.
- Actual - This is the board that the ball actually rolled over. If you hit your target, you can leave this blank, or enter the same board. The statistics calculation considers a blank "actual" entry to mean that you hit your target.
- Slide - For more fine grained tracking, especially those of you who drift, or build a different approach based on your desired swing path, this can be used to keep track of which board you ended up sliding on.
- Breakpoint - Again, for finer-grained visualization of the ball path, you can enter the board that your breakpoint occured on.
- Pocket - This lets you keep track of when you're in the pocket. There are 3 types of pocket hits defined - Light, Flush, and High. How do you define a pocket hit? Well, that's different for everyone. Some say a ball that hits the 1-3 (for a righty) is a pocket hit. Some would say that you also have to carry the 5 pin, or the 2 pin. So, use this as you see fit. The carry percentage in the statistics is calculated as the number of strikes on pocket hits out of the total number of pocket hits (Light, Flush, and High). How do I do it? I call a ball that hits the 1-3 and doesn't go through the nose a pocket shot. Joe Slowinski, whose bowler rating system is used in the statistic calculations, offers the following definition:
I define a pocket shot as one that hits both the 1-3 or 1-2 close to the same time. This narrows down a pocket hit to one that could strike more often than not if the ball motion is into a roll when it hits the pocket.
Also note that, to help make entering the information as easy as possible, any ball that leaves (for a righty) the 1, 3, 5, or 6 pins is automatically marked as "Missed". - Ball - The ball you used for your strike shot.
- Notes - Anything you want to note about the frame - an adjustment you made, an observation about the roll of the ball, etc.
What are all those statistics? How do you calculate them?
Those statistics are your way driving yourself mad, overanalyzing each detail of your game until you become a blithering mess! Just kidding. But they do provide some good insight on the strengths and weaknesses in your game.
Overall Stats
- Games - This is the number of games that went in to the calculation of the statistics.
- Average - Your average for those games.
- Simple Bowler Rating - This is the sum of your strike percentage, makeable spare percentage, and split percentage. Currently, washouts are considered makeable spares. The maximum rating is 300.
- Power Rating - This is the sum of your strike percentage, carry percentage, and double percentage. The maximum rating is 300.
- Advanced Bowler Rating - This is a combination of the previous ratings - the sum of your strike percentage, carry percentage, double percentage, makeable spare percentage, and split percentage. The maximum is 500.
- The previous 3 rating formulas were developed by Joe Slowinski. For more information on the systems, see his excellent site, bowlingknowledge.info.
First Ball Stats
- First Balls Thrown - The number of strike balls you've thrown.
- First Ball Average - The average number of pins knocked down on your first shot.
- Strikes - The number of strikes you've thrown - this includes shots not marked as "pocket shots."
- Pocket Shots - The number of strike balls that have hit the pocket.
- Carry - The number of pocket shots that have struck.
- Double - The number of strikes that are followed by another strike.
- Target Hit - The number of time the target board and actual board were the same. If the actual board was not filled in, it counts as a target hit. If the target board was not filled in, that roll doesn't count towards this statistic.
- Average Miss - The average difference between the target board and the actual board. Only misses are counted in this statistic.
Second Ball Stats
- All Spares - The number of spares made.
- Single Pin - The number of single pin spares made.
- Multi Pin - The number of multi-pin spares made (washouts included).
- Splits - The number of splits made.