Bonus Points

[Anthony J Monteleone]

My league has adopted a new rule;

If you win by 100 pins or more, you receive 1 additional point each game that happens.

Is there a way to set this up or do I have to do this manually?

Thank you for any and all help.

Anthony J Monteleone

[Frank Goebel]

Anthony,

You may not realize this, but you are asking a question on how to apply a rule to a specific BLS product (BLS 2009, soon to be BLS 2010).

Since asked here, I will answer anyway, since there is a part of this that leans on the rules end of things.

When you're awarding additional points to teams, you are effectively having a different amount of points available to each team and therefore you would have to rank teams on a percentage basis. I'm presuming, therefore, that the team that wins a game by ≥100, the team gets one additional point in the win column but there's no offset in the loss column. So since the win/loss doesn't add up to the same number for every team, you will have to use percentages. To rank by percentage, in D-1 Rules, click the blue "Points" tab on the right, and look for a checkbox marked "Standings are determined by a percentage of wins to loses rather than absolute points" and check that box.

As far as applying the points: You will have to do them manually in scores entry. After scores are entered, note the points earned based on entry. Then select the team that's earning the extra point, and click the Ambulance (override) icon at the top. You will have to note what the changed win points are for that session, as if you enter "1", the team will be treated as having won "one" point, not one point in addition to what was won without override. As an example: If the team won three points, and earned one bonus point, put "4" in the "Points won" field at the far right. Leave the "Points Lost" blank as that isn't being overridden. Note that the opposing team may have won a bonus point of its own in the same series (different game) so you'll have to repeat the process for that team, as well as for any other also winning by ≥100.

As for the fairness of such a rule: That I will leave up to others to debate if desired (that sometimes happens here). I would guess that this league is a bit higher on the competitive scale than others; a fun league won't benefit as much by such a rule but one that's very competitive certainly may.

[Patrick Lajko]

We also require that you indicate the version of whatever program you are running. The answer can vary depending on the program and version.

As a humorous note, we have had people post questions and complain the answer didn't work, only to finally get the version number and discover they were asking questions about someone else's program! (The other bowling software companies do not have public message boards for support, so I guess they decided to try ours.)

[Anthony J Monteleone]

Frank and Patrick,

Thank you for answering my question. I thought that I was asking the question in the right place and apologize for picking the wrong forum. This is my second question, that I have had, since I started using BLS 4 years ago.

I was using BLS 2009 Pro and Just upgraded to BLS 2010 Pro.

I was hoping that there was a setting that needed to be selected and was afraid that I would have to do it manualy.

Your answer was very helpful and informative.

And, Yes, my league is slowly moving from Slightly Competitive to Very Competitive but we are still a hadicap league.

The "top teams" think that this will help them beat the handicap but it was my pleasue to give some of the lower average teams the bonus points this past week.

Thanks again for "droping everything and working on my problem", nice tag Frank.

Anthony J Monteleone
BLS 2010 Pro

[Frank Goebel]

Thanks again for "droping everything and working on my problem", nice tag Frank.

BLS 2010 Pro

I actually have a t-shirt with those words and appropriately wore it the first night (two nights ago). It got more than its share of comments, mostly so from the person against whom I was bowling (who himself is a secretary/treasurer also using BLS). Amazing how few spares I missed even that first night.

[Patrick Lajko]

Years ago the ABC did a study on handicaps. They found that to be equal, you really need a handicap of around 117%. The idea that bonus points helps the high average team is false. They already have an advantage with an 80% or 90% handicap.

If you do the math and study how bowling is scores, you'll find that a lower average team has a better chance of bowling 100 pins or more over their average than a high average team. Take a single bowler as an example. If a bowler has a 250 average, it is very hard to bowl 40 pins over average. If you have a 150 average bowler, it only takes a couple strikes together to be 40 pins over average.

You can extrapolate that to two teams bowling against each other. It is easier for a lower average team to bowl more over their average than the high average team. Stringa few strikes together given a little luck and the low average bowlers are really over their average. Over the season, I would bet you'll see more bonus points given to the lower average teams than the higher average teams.

It goes with the false belief that using a 200 base for handicaps is better than having the base higher than your highest average bowlers because "we don't want the high average bowlers to have any handicap". Do the math with a 230 and a 130 average bowler both bowling their average with 90% of 200 and see who will always win - the 230 always wins. Do the same with 100% handicap and you'll see the high average bowler always wins. For the 130 average bowler to win, he would have to bowl more than 30 pins over average. Now do the same with 90% of 250. You'll see the bowlers are closer and more competitive for both.

Being competitive doesn't mean automatically giving points to the high average bowler or team - even when they sandbag. Being competitive means you have to bowl better than your opponent (with handicap) no matter what your average is. That's why bonus points and other goofy rules do nothing to make a league more competitive. Keep the rules simple with a simple point system and a fair handicap system.

[Frank Goebel]

Patrick - bear in mind that these bonus points are for 100-pin victories (i. e. Blowouts) not beating one's team average by 100. Handicap percentages aren't in play here as far as I can tell.

[Patrick Lajko]

Bowling over average or beating the opponent still gives the same stats when you work out the math. It is easier for lower teams to bowl better than a higher team. Therefore easier for a lower team to win by more than 100 than a higher team ( unless it is a scratch league in which case it really favors the high team). He said it was a handicap league.
Using a bowler bowling over average made it an easy example to follow. Extrapolate to a team of 4 low average bowlers against a team of 4 high average bowlers. You'll see the lower average team can bowl much better than the high average team and it would be easier for them to win by over 100. Also keep in mind it is really easy for a high average person to bowl bad simply by having a few spares instead of strikes. If you don't string together a bunch of strikes every game, you can't maintain a high average. Easy to go way below average on an off night. open one frame and you're down probably 20 pins or more. Hard to get much better since you're already always throwing lots of strikes. Likewise, if you're a crappy bowler you can't get much worse because already you don't get many strikes or spares. A luck night with a few extra strikes and you're way over you're average.

The result is it would be as easy or easier for a low team to get the bonus points.