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Fundamental Skills

Use the key pin to make spares

A good spare shooter must have a plan before each shot. With the 3-6-9 system - great for those who roll the ball straight or with a slight curve - the bowler moves left or right on the lane depending on which pins are still standing after the first ball. The target on the lane stays the same as for the strike ball and the ball is rolled across the lane at the spare.

For this system to work, the bowler must know which board he or she stood on for the strike shot and be able to identify and hit the key pin - either the only standing pin or the pin with the lowest number among all the pins left standing.

After identifying the key pin, the bowler determines in which zone that pin stands, as shown in Figure 1. The bowler moves three boards for each zone that pin is away from the head pin. For example, the 2- and 8-pins are one zone away from the head pin. If either of those pins is standing after the first ball, move three boards to the right and roll across the lane. If the 10-pin is left standing, for instance, the bowler moves nine boards to the left since the 10-pin is three zones to the right of the head pin. The chart in Figure 2 shows you how many boards to move depending on the key pin.

Fig. 1	Fig. 2

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