Mini-Bowling

A minimalist production, the 55-card deck comes with a stack of score sheets and a thin rule booklet in a simple card box. No indication of the author, publisher or date. It says "Patented" but never gives the patent number. The game is (Canadian) bilingual; judging by the quality of the English, I'd say the author and company are French.

The cards come in several colors and range from 1 to 10 pins, plus Strike, Free and Channel cards. Using two decks allow up to six to play.

In the "300" game (there are four more games), each player gets 10 cards. The discard deck is started with one card from the draw deck. On his turn, a player plays two cards in front of him (forming a bowling "square"), one from his hand, the other from either deck (in any sequence) --this is his score for this square. The two cards should not total more than 10 (a "spare"); if they do, the second card is a "channel" and placed in the discard deck. If the first card played is a Strike, the second card is ignored and discarded. If the second card is a Strike, however, it is again treated as a Channel. A Channel played first becomes a Spare if a Strike or 10 is played second. A Channel played second is a Channel. The 10 is a Spare if preceded by a Free (which otherwise replaces any other card); a 10 can be discarded when played second. A 10 played first forces the second card to be discarded and scores zero (two Channels). A square of 6-9 deducts 10 points from one's score. A perfect game scores 300 points, hence the name.