This installment of The One Board originally appeared in Bowlers Journal International, June, 2021
“Ring the bell!” chants the crowd at Bayside Bowl in Portland, Maine.
The chant is happening because there’s a tie score, but the chant is loud and passionate because, after the bell is actually rung and the crowd explodes into further pandemonium, we’re going to witness the most exciting moment in sports: the rolloff.
When a match comes down to two players getting one shot each, with the higher score advancing in a sudden-death tiebreaking rolloff, and with everyone in the building knowing the score and instantly being able to react to what happens, there isn’t a more accessible way for a casual fan to get into bowling.
For new fans, a rolloff is slightly easier to grasp than watching 14 hours of qualifying for three straight days, followed by two more 12-hour days of match play with wins that come with additional pins and losses that don’t necessarily mean anything (but could), leading to five players bowling a series of one-on-one matches until someone is holding a trophy.
To bowlers and bowling fans, rolloffs are exciting even if not always fair. To be fair about fairness, a rolloff is fair if a bowler wins but unfair if a bowler loses, rendering rolloffs neutral since there is always a winner and a loser.
A rolloff can take many forms. To determine who makes the cut from one round to the next, or for seeding in a stepladder or bracket, a full-game rolloff is used. In a televised one-on-one match, a single-ball rolloff or, as we’ve seen so often in the PBA Playoffs, a ninth-and-10th-frame rolloff comes into play.
Among many exciting and important rolloffs, here are three recent examples of particularly unique and exciting rolloffs:
Barnes vs. Szczerbinksi, Barnes vs. Szczerbinski, Barnes vs. Szczerbinski
In the 2016 DHC PBA Japan Invitational, Chris Barnes and John Szczerbinski battled for the third seed during position round. Barnes, who entered position round in fourth, defeated Szczerbinski by exactly the right amount. When 30 bonus pins were added, the two were tied for third, necessitating a full-game rolloff immediately following their full-game position round to determine who would earn the third seed for the stepladder.
Barnes won the rolloff. As the fourth seed, Szczerbinski opened the telecast by defeating Shota Kawazoe, earning a third match with Barnes. Again, Barnes won. In the end, after three Barnes/Szczerbinski duels, Amleto Monacelli won his 20th PBA Tour title, putting him into a then-three-way tie for 12th in all-time PBA Tour titles. No rolloff has yet been scheduled to break that tie.
The Rolloff to Force a Rolloff
Last month, Jesper Svensson won game one over Sam Cooley in the PBA Playoffs. Cooley had to win game two in order to force a deciding ninth-and-10th-frame rolloff. Needing a strike on his final shot to win game two by a single pin, Cooley instead got nine, tying Svensson.
The winner of game two would have to be decided by a one-ball rolloff. Svensson and Cooley both got nine on their first shots, requiring another round. Svensson again got nine, but Cooley struck, winning the rolloff to force a ninth-and-10th-frame rolloff to decide the match. Cooley won that, too.
As this issue went to print, Cooley was in the semifinals (after another rolloff win over Tom Daugherty). If Cooley wins (won) the PBA Playoffs for $100,000, it would be the most lucrative instance of winning a rolloff to get to a rolloff in PBA history.
The Rolloff for the Alternate Spot
It’s hard to recall a more consequential rolloff than the one that took place at the 2020 PBA Indianapolis Open. At the end of qualifying, Walter Ray Williams Jr. and David Haynes were tied for 17th. Since only 16 players made match play, it seems like 17th wouldn’t matter, but that’s not true. Match play needs an alternate in case of injury. Both players wanted to be that alternate, and with Virgil as their guide, they bowled a full game prior to the first round of match play to determine who would be the alternate.
In the most fitting of outcomes, Williams, the all-time record holder in just about everything, added a new PBA Tour record to his résumé: the only man ever to win a rolloff to secure the alternate spot. He did not get into the action.