Boards??

[Noy]

Hello everyone, sorry for the newbness (only been bowling for 4 weeks).  But yea, I often see people talking about what "board" they throw their ball up, or what boards they make their ball hook/curve around.  Now I understand that the boards are the small pieces of wood on the ground, but how do you interpret these?  Do the boards count from left to right? Right to left?  Also, how many boards span the width of the lane?  Helping me to interpret this info will help me a lot in visualizing descriptions of how people play with different balls.  Thanks a lot again!

[icetink]

There are 39 boards on the lane.  They are counted from right to left if you throw right handed; the 1 board being the furthest right.  They are counted from left to right if you throw left handed.  Hope this helps!
--------------------
Dino
Evolutionary. Revolutionary.
Track

[shelley]

They count from right to left.  The 1-board is the first board from the right gutter.  The 10-board is where the second arrow (on the right) is located.  The arrows, by the way, are 5 boards apart, so the third arrow is the 15-board.

This flips for lefties.  If you're a lefty, the 1-board is the first board from the left gutter.

There are 39 boards, arrows every five.  Some people might talk about 10L or 10R to avoid flipping the numbers for righty/lefty, but most find it easier to just number them from 1 to 39.  The 20th board is the center one, the fourth arrow.  If someone says they're playing the 10-board or swinging it 17 to 5, you can know what they're doing whether they're right-handed or left-handed, it's the same thing.

When they do say they're swinging it 17 to 5, that means the ball crosses the 17th board (between the third and fourth arrows) at the arrows, and the breakpoint, where the ball really changes direction is at the 5-board, around 40-45 feet downlane.

SH

Edited on 4/6/2006 12:19 PM