New bowler average

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JimH
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New bowler average

Post by JimH »

New bowlers have been assigned a nominal average for many years in order to determine a handicap. When I started bowling many years ago the nominal average was 130 for men and 120 for women. I recently heard of a league that assigns a 185 average for new bowlers. I am now curious as to what average leagues in your area use for such bowlers.
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Re: New bowler average

Post by MegaMav »

I dont see too many new bowlers average 185.
I'd say 150 is about right, they dont make a lot of spares and have a hard time finding the pocket even on a house shot.
Most of them bowl with plastic or a very old ball too.
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Re: New bowler average

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I agree that very few in any new bowlers would average 185. This kind of thing would not encourage new bowlers to join an established league. On a personal front I stopped bowling for about 20 years and therefore I did not have an established average. My previous average was 172 in 1968, I was confident I would get back there within a short time but the league secretary insisted on giving me the nominal 130 average. I thought 160 would have been appropriate.
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Re: New bowler average

Post by bowl1820 »

I dont think i ever saw a league assign a average to a new bowler, they just establish or if they used a cushion that would figure into it.

Now i have seen tournaments where if you didnt have a book average, you came in as a 200 ave. or bowled scratch
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LookingForALeftyWall
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Re: New bowler average

Post by LookingForALeftyWall »

After a 19 year absence, I joined a competitive men's league in 2010 and was assigned a 175 average. I ended the year at 213. In retrospect, it was not a very good assignment of new bowler average.

The thing is, new bowler averages are a tough assignment to begin with. I think it should depend on the league and the competition. You want to bowl in a competitive, high stakes, high prize fund league, an entering new bowler average should be given an entering average of at least 190 if there is no none public record of your prior bowling. You shouldn't be able to enter at 175 like I did. The new bowler should show that he/she is on par with the participants in the league. On the other hand, if you're starting in a fun, low prize league, with lower average bowlers, I'd advocate for a much lower entering average like 130-150. It's all about context.

And for the record I told the league officers that 175 was too low for me and that people were not going to be pleased if I was way over that as the season progressed. They told me that they "want to see what I've got and if they need to, will reassess"....
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Re: New bowler average

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bowl1820 wrote:I dont think i ever saw a league assign a average to a new bowler, they just establish or if they used a cushion that would figure into it.
The purpose is to give a handicap to a new bowler for the first 2 or 3 weeks. For those first few weeks the handicap is based on the nominal average, After a few games are bowled the handicap is based on the games bowled. League rules specify how long the nominal average is used, it is often set to 6 games or 2 weeks.
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Re: New bowler average

Post by spmcgivern »

We typically use the first week's scores to establish an average for truly new bowlers. It is usually different for established bowlers where last year's average is used for a couple of weeks until a pre-determined number of games are bowled and then the cumulative average for that year is used.

I can see issues if a truly new bowler is trying to bowl a capped league like most scratch leagues are. Set the average too low and the team is stacked. Set it too high and new bowlers will not bowl since they are costing teams pins. Some use a negative score if you go over the cap. It can be difficult establishing a good number.
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Re: New bowler average

Post by kajmk »

If I recall correctly, Mark Baker said he averaged in the 140 range his first year.
Mark was quite an athlete too.

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Re: New bowler average

Post by bowl1820 »

JimH wrote: The purpose is to give a handicap to a new bowler for the first 2 or 3 weeks. For those first few weeks the handicap is based on the nominal average, After a few games are bowled the handicap is based on the games bowled. League rules specify how long the nominal average is used, it is often set to 6 games or 2 weeks.
I understood what it was used for, I just never seen that system used anywhere here.

Most leagues here use entering averages based on last seasons league or book average. New bowlers establish average the first night, these averages held for the first 9 games.

Now some leagues also use a cushion system, where all the players come in with say 21 games worth of pins already tacked on to their averages.
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Re: New bowler average

Post by JimH »

bowl1820 wrote:Now some leagues also use a cushion system, where all the players come in with say 21 games worth of pins already tacked on to their averages.
I don't understand where the 21 games of pins come from.
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Re: New bowler average

Post by bowl1820 »

JimH wrote: I don't understand where the 21 games of pins come from.
The cushion system is basically to help deter sandbaggers.

When you start the league, You begin with 21 (or some other number of) games bowled with a pin count of 4200 (200 average). (You didn't actually bowl them though)

Week one you bowl a 500 so your new count is 4700 pins and 24 games = avg. of 195
Week two you bowl a 750, pin count is now 5450 for 27 games = avg of 201
Just keep adding on until you get 21 games actual and drop the 21 games and 4200 pins.
Then You would use your actual 21 game average.

The BLS league software has this option it's called "Cushion Average"

I don't know all the in's and out's of how it works, I personally have never bowled on a league that used it.


Heres from the BLS manual explains better:
Cushioned averages (Non-Standard option)
If the league bylaws indicate that there is a cushioned average in effect, select this option. There are two possible ways for BLS-2005 to calculate cushioned averages. There is the normal method and a declining cushion option.

1. If a bowler has a 150 book average and the league has a 21 game cushioned average the math goes as follows.
Average = Pins/Games
(Pins and Games reflect what has been bowled so far and numbers reflect 3 games bowled a night.)
((150 X 21) + Pins )/(21 +Games) = Cushioned average

This means that the number of pins and games bowled is simply artificially inflated to cushion a change in the average until 21 games is reached then the extra pins and games are dropped.


2. The declining cushion option works a little differently and yields slightly different results, often differing by a couple pins. With this method the average is cushioned less as the 9 game limit is attained.

Assume the bowler bowls 3 games of 125 pins each night:
Week 1 average=Book Average
Week 2 average=((150 X 6) +375)/(6+3)=141
Week 3 average=((150 X 3) +750)/(3+6)=133
Week 4 average=(Pins)/(Games)=(1125/9)=125
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