H006
Can two bowlers knock down the same 50 pins and finish 70 points apart?
Same 50 pins. Same five strikes. Same five gutter frames. Only the order changes.
Bowler A
Bowler B
Try it somewhere else
A $50 jacket gets two discounts: 20% off and $10 off. One register applies them in one order, a second register in the other.
Do both registers charge the same price?
Why does the order change the score?
The same trick shows up any time a scoring rule rewards sequence rather than totals: a baseball team can out-hit its opponent and still lose, because runs, like bowling frames, only count when the good outcomes land in the right order.
Does order matter in baseball too?
Yes. In this illustrative game, the visitors out-hit the home team 12 to 5 and still lost 4–2. A hit is a chance to score, not a run; runs come when hits are bunched together.
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | Total | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Visitors hits | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 12 |
| Visitors runs | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| Home hits | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | x | 5 |
| Home runs | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | x | 4 |
The visitors spread their hits out. They had a hit in every inning but never more than two, so runners were left stranded. Their only runs came from a single followed by a double in the 3rd and a solo home run in the 7th.
The home team bunched theirs. In the 4th inning, a walk and three straight hits, the last a two-run double, produced three runs. A solo home run in the 7th made it 4–2. Like strikes in bowling, hits are worth the most when they come one after another.