Calculator
Fill in a scoresheet the way you would at the lanes and watch the running total build. Strike and spare bonuses are applied for you, including the tenth frame.
Type each roll: a number, or X for a strike and / for a spare. Blank frames are just left unscored.
Most people can add up an open frame. What trips everyone up is that a strike or a spare is worth more than ten pins, and you cannot know how much more until you have bowled the next one or two shots. The score of frame 4 can depend on what happens in frame 6.
That is why the calculator above leaves a frame blank until the bonus rolls exist. It is not waiting on you; the score genuinely is not determined yet.
The tenth frame is the one that confuses people, and the rule is simpler than it looks: you get extra rolls only so the bonus can be paid. Strike on the first ball and you get two more. Spare and you get one more. Leave it open and you are done in two. Those extra balls are not a separate frame and they do not carry their own bonus — they exist purely to settle what the tenth frame is worth.
Twelve strikes, not ten. Frames one through nine are each worth 30 (ten pins plus two more strikes), and the tenth pays 30 for its three balls. Nine times 30 is 270, plus 30, gives 300. The last two balls of a perfect game are the bonus on the ninth and tenth frames rather than frames of their own.
| Mark | Means |
|---|---|
| X | Strike — all ten on the first roll |
| / | Spare — all ten across two rolls |
| – | Miss — no pins on that roll |
| F | Foul — crossed the line, that roll counts zero |
The calculator accepts X and / directly, so you can copy a scoresheet across as it was written. A foul is entered as 0.
Work forward, frame by frame, and keep a running total rather than scoring each frame in isolation. When you reach a strike, look ahead two balls and add them; for a spare, look ahead one. If your total ever exceeds 300 you have double-counted a bonus, which is far and away the most common arithmetic error.
If you want context for the number you end up with, the guides on what counts as a good score and how the pins are numbered go further.
Add the pins knocked down in each frame, plus bonuses: a strike scores 10 plus the pins from your next two rolls, and a spare scores 10 plus the pins from your next roll. Keep a running total frame by frame. The calculator above does this for you as you type each roll.
A strike is worth 10 points plus whatever you knock down on your next two rolls, so a single strike is worth between 10 and 30 points.
A spare is worth 10 points plus the pins knocked down on your next roll, so between 10 and 20 points.
300, a perfect game: twelve strikes in a row, with each of the ten frames worth 30.
If you bowl a strike in the tenth frame you get two more rolls; a spare earns one more roll. Those extra rolls only count toward the tenth frame's bonus.
Want to learn to do it in your head? The bowling score trainer walks you through strikes, spares and the tenth frame with nine short exercises.