How to hit A 7 10 Split
Why It’s Almost Impossible to Make a 7-10 Split in Bowling | WIRED
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in professional bowling about 60% of the
shots are strikes but what about the
rest of the shots there are over 1000
possible spare configurations and
players convert the hardest less than
one percent of the time so what's the
most difficult spare of all well there
are a lot of notorious spares out there
but today we're gonna be looking at the
most notorious of all the 710 split now
look some of you may have noticed that
this episode breaks with our format a
little bit because unlike previous feats
that we've looked at people have
actually hit 710 splits here's the thing
nobody on earth can hit a 710 split
predictably or reliably and that's
because that split is even harder than
it looks so today we're gonna look at
why converting the 710 split is really
truly almost impossible to find out what
it takes I played a few frames with a
professional bowler I believe the 710 is
the hardest spare split conversion to
make in bowling tried hacking the game
with a bowling robot and crawled inside
the jaws of a pin setting machine to
find out what really makes the 710 split
the most difficult spare of all this has
been turned completely off which I am
grateful for but first I went bowling
I've made the 710 three times in my
lifetime and I'm 43 years old I've been
on tour for going on 19 years that is 10
time national titleholder Wes Malott we
met up with him at the u.s. bowling
Congress in Arlington Texas do you have
any pro tips on how to how to convert
this thing well I'll tell you one thing
in order to make two you gotta hit one
or in other words accuracy is essential
come on it's also not my strong suit
come on it's hard to hit the one at
least for me it is Malad can hit
whatever pin he wants almost every time
but there's more to converting this pair
than accuracy and to fully appreciate
why it helps to understand the anatomy
of a bowling lane it's 42 inches wide
and 60 feet from the foul line to the
head pin that's pin number one the nine
remaining pins are numbered like this
each pin stands 12 inches away from its
neighbors creating a pattern of
equilateral triangles two gutters run
along side the lane and trap the ball if
it strays too far left or right removing
it from play bowling just boils down to
angles when the ball and pin collide the
pin bounces in a direction perpendicular
to the tangent plane that intersects
with the point of contact so if you hit
the pin here it'll bounce here hit it
here it'll fly here and if you hit it
here it'll go this way that means that
in order to send the 7 pin flying across
the lane and into the 10 pin or vice
versa in theory you need to hit it right
here here's the problem it is impossible
to get a bowling ball far enough outside
the 7 or the 10 pin without it first
falling into the gutter there's just not
enough room that makes the 710 split the
only spare in bowling that can't be
converted with ball and pins alone to
pull it off you actually have to bounce
the 7 pin or the 10 pin off the
machinery behind the pins and the more
power on the shot the better when the
lot goes for the 710 split he throws at
about 22 miles per hour that's harder
than he usually does and he often gives
it a little bit of forward spin so the
ball won't hook and lose speed but
there's one more essential ingredient
for converting the 710 split luck
even if you hit the pin hard enough and
even if it heads toward the pin setter
at a good angle there's just no telling
how it's going to ricochet without some
kind of lucky bounce and the machinery
in the back end you're just not going to
convert it and that's because this isn't
like banking a shot in pool for starters
the pins have
that causes them to bounce around
unpredictably but you also have to
consider the barrier behind the pins
it's a curtain not a wall which means
that it moves and anything bouncing off
of it is going to ricochet around even
less predictably and some of those
curtains move more than others here's
what I mean by that
okay so unless you work at a bowling
alley you've probably never been back
behind here this is a pin setter it's
what collects and sort of repositions
all the pins every time you're bowling
and the piece that we want to look at is
in here okay so this is an older-model
pin setter it's anchored in two places
once up here at the top and again down
here along this more solid bumper
section when you're trying to convert
the 710 split the goal is to bounce
either the seven pin or the 10 pin off
of these surfaces and into the opposing
pin now what you might have noticed when
I touch it is that this curtain has some
give to it and that movement actually
reduces the energy of the pin bouncing
off of it which makes it tougher to
ricochet into the other pin here's the
thing on newer model pin setters this
curtain moves even more and when we were
at the u.s. bowling Congress we actually
got to see what one of those pin setting
curtains looks like on these newer
mechanisms this curtain is only attached
at the top and so it swings completely
freely like a doggy door and then the
pin instead of bouncing all of that
energy just gets absorbed into the
curtain all of which means that in the
end when it comes to the 710 split
your best bet is to hit either pin as
hard and as consistently as possible and
then just hope for the best and when it
comes to consistency no bowler on earth
is as reliable as this one meet Earl
that was mildly terrifying Earl is our
staff bowler here in the equipment specs
department he's a robotic arm and he
throws bowling balls very very very well
Earl can put a bowling ball pretty much
anywhere you want at up to 24 miles per
hour and it's pin rates as high as nine
hundred rotations per minute that's
triple what pros put on their shots and
once you've dialed in all your
parameters Earl can roll the same shot
over
and over and over normally the US
Bowling Congress uses Earl to test
equipment but today we're gonna use it
for an experiment the goal to see if
Earl can hit a 710 split
come on Earl I'm changing the trajectory
from one point seven to one point two to
increase our chances of hitting the
sparrow we decided to let Earl Bowl on a
lane with an older model pinsetter with
a fixed curtain
we tried bouncing into the side at an
angle towards the middle of the curtain
and even got the pin to double bounce
off the ball and while some of our shots
looked like they might have come close
to converting the spare we never managed
to actually pick it up Earl might be
powerful and consistent but not even a
robot can engineer luck so if you bring
all of these factors into consideration
you wind up with a conversion rate on
the 710 split of just 0.7 percent but
there is a spare that players hit even
less often this is data journalist Ben
Blatt a few years ago he analyzed close
to half a million frames from the
professional bowling Association to try
and figure out what the hardest shot in
bowling really is so you analyzed close
to half a million frames what did you
find there a conversion that was picked
up least often is a shot that she has a
nickname called a Greek church it was
picked up about 0.3 percent of the time
compared to the 710 split which is about
0.7 percent of the time so they're
obviously both extremely hard to pick up
but the Greek Church sophistical II was
converted much less than the 7/10
flipped if you've never heard of the
Greek Church here's what it looks like
for right-handers it's when you leave
the 4 6 7 9 and 10 pins and it's the
mirror image of that pin arrangement for
lefties it's called the Greek Church
because if you look at the pins head-on
and use your imagination they look a
little bit like the spires of an old
cathedral to convert it you need to hit
all the pins on one side while sending
at least one of them
Alaine to knock over the remaining pins
it's a highly technical and very risky
shot if you miss which you probably will
you earn far fewer points than if you go
for the three pins you know you can hit
that second strategy is called going for
counts and bowlers typically do it when
they encounter difficult spares if
you're in a game time scenario strategy
more often than not calls for just
picking up the three on the right most
of the time yes you're going for a count
and you're going for the three on the
right but let's say you're going for all
five pins is the Greek Church actually
harder than the seven ten not according
to malotte
I think the seven sounds harder than a
great Church because the Greek Church
you can shoot at it and you've got a pin
that can slide across to make the other
pens a seven-ten they're even farther
apart and it's virtually impossible
because the lane is only so wide you
can't hit that side of the pin and get
it to slide over to the seven pen to
prove his point millat agreed to try
converting the Greek Church he struggled
at first it is after all a really
difficult shot but it only took him
about a dozen attempts to finally
convert the whole spare and he came
pretty close three or four times we saw
similar results from early once it was
dialed in the robot was able to convert
the Greek Church about 40% of the time
but neither our human bowler nor our
robot one could convert the 7/10 so if
the professionals still think the 710
split is harder than the Greek Church
why did it come up less often in Blatt
study again it boils down to strategy on
the 710 split it's the same shot whether
you're trying to knock over one pin or
two but on the Greek Church its two
different shots if you go four counts
you'll probably pick up three pins but
if you try to convert the spare you're
going for these two pins right here and
there's a good chance you'll walk away
with just one we're maybe even none even
though converting the Greek Church is
technically easier it is almost never
worth it to try in the game it's
virtually impossible almost impossible
to be able to slide over and hit both of
those pins on it
which is probably why it showed up less
in the study than the 7:10 the point is
there is an important distinction
between the rarest shot in bowling and
the most difficult a title that still
belongs to the 710 split
because remember without that pin
setting machinery behind it
you cannot convert the 710 split so
unless that machinery changes in some
way to bounce pins more reliably or
predictably the 710 split will remain
almost impossible
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