points per week per pair team?

[Joyce Lost]

The points in Leagues in WI had moved up to 7 points per session many years ago- like 20 or more-
2 for each game won and 1 for hdcp total.

When I moved to AZ - Most of them are using 4 point sysem 1 for each game won and 1 for total. My league has changed to 7 and they really like it. Other bowlers "Look puzzeled at me" when I ask them about the points they used, and if they had even heard of 7 point system. No-No they like the fact that many weeks each team gets 2 & 2 on the points. They NEVER heard of 7 points

What are the rest of you using? (Not counting Match Points) Just the regular points for each game?

Thanks Joyce

[Bob Lanouette]

The leagues in our Center use 3 pts, 4 pts, and 7 pts systems. No pts for total wood for the 3pts leagues; most leagues use the 4 pts system; the leagues that I run use the 7 pt system (my own personal preference). The advantage here, of course, is that if your team wins 2 games, your team at least gains 1 pt on your opponent. One year we experimented with a 5 pt system (1-1-1-2) but we ditched that pretty quick because it definitely favors the stronger teams.

[Frank Goebel]

I'm the secretary of a decent-size men's match-play league, meaning that each score bowled is compared against the person lined up against him, with handicap, for one point. The team total for each game is worth 3 points. Four on a team, 7 points available each game. For the series, the individuals are not compared, but the series total for the teams are, for three more points. It's a 24-point system. Each bowler has his own win-loss record, but no points awarded if absent (that is, if the bowler's absentee score is used). I think my league is the only match play league in the center.

As an aside, we're required to line up bowlers low to high average, although a sub takes the lineup position the absentee would have had, even if average is far from the member. You wouldn't believe how many members, who have been there for years with the same rule in place, ask why the handicap is out of whack (since the handicap would go from high to low in the lineup).

In other leagues in my center, many other points systems are used. I think most are the regular four-points. The one four-game league uses a six-point: One per game, and two for the series.

[Angel Zobel-Rodriguez]

Frank, I'm just curious why a league would require the lineup to be high-to-low or low-to-high and not just let the team on the right decide the lineup? This isn't the first league I've seen like this, but I've never understood it. I can't picture why a league would bowl matchpoint and not be able to use any strategy in order to decide which match-ups would be be to their benefit. Nothing surprises me, but I always try to at least see what people were thinking.

[Keith Chambers]

Most of the handicap leagues in the San Diego area use the 4 point system. The scratch leagues seem to all have a different system, most with 3 points unless it is match play, then there are also different systems.
My TNBA league uses the 7 point system (2-2-2-1) and everyone seems to be OK with it. Our All Star Travel league used the same 24 point system that Franks describes, except that the Team Captain highest in the standings puts in their lineup and the opposing Team Captain then matches his/her lineup in whatever order they chose. This allows the team captain to chose the matchups, hopefully to their advantage.
As I am sure that Joyce has discovered with her experience, bowlers are very slow to accept changes, but if you can get them to "experiment" with a new idea during the summer leagues, you might get them to adopt it for the winter. That is how I convinced my mixed league to change the handicap from an individual base to a team base. (90% of 840 as opposed to 90% of 210). Also to allow substitutes to be used for a legal lineup, but that is probably best left to a separate thread!

Keith Chambers
San Diego

[Lance Rasmussen]

Angel,

I've been on a couple match point leagues where left team sets the roster, then the right can match.

And I've been on a low to high matchup.

The later "sorta" makes it more fair in that the low guy is against the low guy. It can help create a little bit of competition within the team as well.

One year, I ended up being anchor for our team, which was a lower ave team in a 170+ ave league. It provided some interesting bowling averaging 185-189 and going against 205-220 ave players who were anchors.

[Angel Zobel-Rodriguez]

Lance,

I guess it all comes down to strategy, and maximizing points as a team. If the teams are required to go high-low, there is no strategy in that.

One of my favorite memories in my first matchpoint five-person scratch league came when our matchups didn't look so good against another team. We took our lowest average bowler and put her against the anchor on the other team. We didn't do this in a vacuum--we told her we were going for four points, and all she had to do is bowl like normal. She was fine with it until the other anchor (a lefty) laughed and said he could beat her with his right arm. That was all it took and she started bowling like a house on fire and suddenly he had to strike out in the 10th to beat her the first game. She was ecstatic she'd unnerved him that badly and almost won that point. We won four individual points and our team points that game, so it was a win-win. From then on, any time we changed a lineup, she was game (as were any of the rest of us to get a better matchup for the rest of the team). Of course, teams that didn't get the whole idea of maximizing our chances thought we were terribly mean to let our poor 140 bowler be pitted against these big bad men. We tried to explain it to other teams, but some how they didn't get it. Needless to say, we did pretty well that season since we actually worked our lineup to our benefit.

[mikewhite]

I have bowled in both mandatory & selective line ups. With mandatory line ups the stronger teams wind up taking most of points most of the time. In selective line ups you have the oppertunity for lower teams to juggle line up to possible get some points that they might not otherwise get, keeping the standings closer. In my current league the team higher in the standings lines up first, allowing the lower place team that chance to stay close in the standings. doesnt always work, but at least its a chance

[Frank Goebel]

Angel had asked why our league lines up low to high. That was in place years before the league moved to our center and merged with a league to which I had been elected secretary - and with that, I became secretary of that merged league with most of their by-laws. What I did have to insist on, though, was that handicap had to be to a base score. They had done their handicap to the lower average only, and the same for the team. With this larger league, I wasn't going to do all of that manually (AMF Advantage wouldn't have handled it).

I do appreciate the arguments on stronger and weaker teams, but I think it's the overall spread of the averages, and how competitive/consistent the individual bowlers themselves are, that can lead. Averaging low to high means that there isn't as likely to be a major difference in handicap. A bowler in the 210s-220s won't wind up against someone under 190, for example. But as to the long-ago "why" in the case of my league - I don't know what it is.