Hi Trev,
I'm really looking forward to the explanation that goes with the claim that, surely, will come from someone (eventually) to have left 7 pins standing after "taking out" the 5-8-9 pins!!! Any variation on this theme (e.g. I left 8 pins standing and took-out the 5-9 or, I left 9 pins but hammered the 5 pin) also should make for interesting reading!!
Personally, I'm still bereft of any NEW weird leaves to post about so I thought I would mention, for the benefit of new members to this Forum, Brenton Davy's remarkable achievement of leaving 8 pins standing, after picking-off the 7-10, clean as a whistle, with his first ball!!
Brenton was warming-up prior to bowling in the Stepladder Final of this year's Australian Open at Sunshine. They had just dropped down a new deck and Drillman (a leftie) was practising sparing the 7 pin. Just after BD released his ball, the MC called a halt to practice and started spruking about something (or nothing!!, there was an awful lot of waiting around for the TV cameras, etc, that day).
Meanwhile, the ball carries on down the lane and slams the 7 pin fair in the guts. In a state of shock, the 7 pin throws itself at the back wall and promptly bounces back to inflict grievous bodily harm, from the rear, on the 10 pin. Mortally wounded, the 10 pin collapses into the gutter. The other 8 pins sat motionless and silent (as did the assembled masses), trying to fathom what had happened. Eventually, the MC explained that Brenton had just "spared" the 7-10 split....., with his first ball!!
OK Trev, now that I've paid my dues (well,....sort of), I'd like to probe a little further on Matthew Smith's observation about the number of possible leaves if there were 15 pins (presumably, a fifth row of 5 pins) in the deck!! I, must admit that this nightmare thought sent shivers down my spine, ..... and I don't even bowl!! It's not so much the realisation that there are now 32,767 possible/impossible leaves that scared the fertiliser out of me. (As Matt points out, one more, or 32,768, if you count a strike that leaves nothing.) It's the spectre of just how difficult it would be to spare some of the leaves.
I always think the 3-9 looks pretty tough for the rightie (2-8 for the leftie) but how would you tackle a 1-5-13 leave in a 15 pin deck? Or the 2-4-12-14 "box"? The "horrible" leaves are almost limitless, but, given that bowlers (like golfers) are masochists at heart, might Fifteenpin Bowling catch on?
Obviously, bowlers would have to set up their equipment differently and change techniques etc, etc, but I would be interested in hearing people's views on how difficult it would be after, say, a year of practice, to score a strike with a 15 pin deck. A good male tournament bowler should pick-up about 65 to 75 strikes in 12 games of qualifying. Would this stat drop to 2 or 3 strikes (i.e. the inverse of the ratio of the number of possible leaves) with a 15 pin deck or would it be more like, say, 35 to 40 srikes and, if so, why?
