

The Hardest Shot in Bowling - mhb
http://www.slate.com/articles/sports/sports_nut/2015/02/hardest_shot_in_bowling_it_s_not_the_7_10_split_it_s_the_greek_church.html

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Someone
Nice article, but the nitpicker/mathematician (is there a difference?) in me
spots a flaw in its logic. Maybe, the reason for the low success rate on the
4-6-7-9-10 split is because the really good pros rarely end up with it.

Also, I would like to see a comparison using mirror images for left-handen
players.

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random_rr
Admittedly, maybe pro bowlers aren't familiar with this one configuration.
However, they are incredibly familiar with every aspect of bowling, so if the
great majority of them cannot (or will not attempt to) make this shot, it's
probably pretty telling regarding degree of difficulty.

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Someone
Of course they will attempt to make that shot, if they get it, and the game
calls for it (extreme example: if they need only 3 pins to win a match, no
sane pro would attempt to get a difficult spare of 4 pins that has an easy 3
pin subset)

On the other hand, if you are behind with only a few turns to go, taking the
risk of taking on the more difficult throw will be the right choice.

The issue is that the distribution of plays that good players get on their
second throw is different from that that bad players get. Let's exaggerate to
show why:

Collect all throws on a random bowling alley for a year. I predict that the
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10 configuration as the first throw has a higher success
rate than as a second throw.

Reason? Players who end up with that second shot must have completely missed
the first shot. Good players will occasionally get there (if you wait long
enough you will even find a pro throwing it, maybe because he suffers a stroke
during play), but bad players will get there disproportionally more often. Of
all such second shots, 90+% may be played by the bottom 50% of players.

Similarly, I think the 7-8-9-10 that isn't in this dataset isn't impossible. I
would guess children who are barely strong enough to throw the ball will
occasionally throw it.

Thinking of it, bowling would get way more interesting if one could get more
points for difficult combinations. Let's say you announce "I'll leave the 7
and 10 pins standing and take them out with my second ball", and go on to do
that. Surely, that's worth more than a dull strike?

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clarky07
I have seen a 7-8-9-10 both left, and amazingly, picked up. Weird stuff
happens when people don't throw the ball hard. This particular feat was by a
friend's wife. If you throw directly in the middle of the 8-9 they will fall
sideways and get the 7 and 10.

No pro will ever leave this though. Not possible throwing at normal speeds.

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phkahler
I'm not a good bowler but I have made the 6,7,10. I think the problem with the
"Greek Church" is that you've got the 6,9,10 setup and you're trying to just
nick the 6 to send it to the opposite side to hit the 4,7. If you do that, the
ball probably sends the 10 to the right of the 9 and you just don't get all 3
on the right side. The mirror image setup is completed far more often because
a right handed bowler is aiming at the set of 2 pins (6,10) and the 6 can take
out all the ones on the other side while the ball gets the 10. I wonder if the
data included which pins were left standing after the failures.

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someotherdb
The hardest shot in our local bowling alley is the two lane bounce (onto
someone else's game) followed by the car park sprint to avoid the beating that
follows such an audacious shot.

Very few make it.

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lmm
How common are cases like this "Greek Church"? Part of the reason the 7-10
split is iconic is that it's something a beginner sees pretty often.

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sp332
The rectangle that says "The Spare Success Machine" is interactive. Select the
pins and it will give you statistics on that configuration. "Out of 149 times
this occurred in the sample of PBA competitions it was converted to a spare 2
times." From a collection of 180,000 non-strike frames.

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Bedon292
I am really interested in seeing the rate at which all of those combinations
occur in some sort of chart rather than just small text under the calculator.

The 7-10 split occurred 3069 times in comparison to the 785 times of
4-6-7-9-10. The mirrored one only occurred 149 times but was converted the
same number of times.

Is there really enough occurrences of these to determine which is hardest?

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mdturnerphys
The numbers aren't good enough to say that any of the five hardest shots is
significantly more difficult than the others.

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clarky07
Part of the problem with these stats is that depending on the state of the
game the person might not even be trying to pick it up. If you need 2 pins to
win, get the 2 easy pins instead of trying to pick up the hard spare where you
might miss.

The other thing is that pros don't leave something like the greek church very
often. It was left 785 times in 447k frames. The data on picking it up just
isn't that significant. It also means it isn't going to get practiced nearly
as much as something more common.

Also, there are more right handed people than left, and it shows in the data.
mirror image shots aren't "easier," they are just easier for a certain handed
player. As most are right handed, the shots that are easier for them will show
up as easier in the stats.

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kazinator
It's interesting that the mirror-image Greek Church is converted 1.6% of the
time, some eight times more often. One has to wonder, if the stats could be
distinguished by left and right-handed players, would the numbers be opposite.

