My answer would be, YES, it was a pocket hit. Was it too fast? Did it hit light? Those are different questions.

I can think of numerous ways that hitting the pocket has left a 7 pin. Each shot hit the pocket, but for various reasons, left it.

Conversely, how many times have you hit the pocket light, and struck? How many messengers have been send? How many trip 4's have I carried? Or late fall overs?

I would say, since I get more strikes per game than others, I would have more light hit strikes than light hit misses. And, they both hit the pocket.

So, what are you keeping Track of? Only light pocket hits that leave a pin? Why not include the light pocket hits that carried?

Double post, again.

Any way you want to look at it you can tell a lot about your shot by what pins the ball hits and how it hits them. If you watch the ball go through the pins and it will tell you whether you need to make an adjustment or not.

If the ball deflects too much and hits on the right side of the 9 pin you need to make an adjustment. This is telling you that the ball was either still hooking as it hit the head pin which made it deflect too much into the three and nine, or the ball finished hooking too soon and rolled out before it hit the pins which caused the ball to deflect too far into the 3 and nine pins.

If the ball is still hooking, it is also still skidding that is why a hooking ball will sometimes over deflect off of the head pin especially if it comes in behind the head pin as it would if the ball hit carry down on it's way to the pocket, or if the ball was just not strong enough or didn't have enough surface.

If the ball rolled out it might have been if you missed it out into the dry and the ball burned up too much energy getting back to the pocket, or the ball just is either too strong or has too much surface.

If the ball hits to the left of the 9 pin or misses it completely your ball is hooking as it hits the pins, but didn't encounter carry down or extra oil along the way to make it skid and hook, but hook and roll. This type of phenomenon was rare back in the old days, but modern bowling balls will drive right through the pins if they have not burned off enough energy on the way to the pins. I have seen some of the right handed pro's balls actually finish on the 8 pin.

I believe they are trying to figure out how to mark some of the off pocket hits when using the program that CG is trying to develop to keep Track of one's bowling for the night. Nothing else is factored into that such as speed of ball, or axis rotation or even entry angle. All of that can be added into the notes section for each game. Maybe instead of just a yes/no input for that field maybe using flush, high, light and no would work better, with an extremely high or light shot being considered not in the pocket.

Ideally I believe the pocket is the 17.5 board for the ball. If the ball hits the pin on the 20 board its out of the pocket which is really flush on the head pin, or if it hits the pins at the 15 board its out of the pocket which is more flush on the 3 pin. So lets consider pocket making contact with the pins between the 16 board and the 19 board with the extreme being really light and really high respectively.

Infernocal, you're somewhat right, but it isn't just about figuring out if someone hit the pocket. It's about defining what a pocket hit is for calculating stats. If you're going to figure out your carry percentage, you'll take the number of strikes devided by the number of pocket hits. How you determine what a pocket hit is will drastically change the number you come up with for carry percentage.

For example, leaving a 2-8-10 would be considered a pocket hit that didn't carry, but should you ever expect that shot to carry? to me, "carry" or lack of it is about shots that hit the pocket that you'd have a reasonable expectation that you'd get a strike. Lack of carry would be leaving things like back row pins and fast 8's. Pins like 4's and 6's would be border line. But leaving 2-8-10's / 3-7-9's or buckets aren't shots that you should expect to carry in the first place. Even worse is being high on the head pin, barely touching the 2 or 3 and leaving a big split. You know you didn't stand a chance of getting a strike. To me it doesn't tell you much when that gets counted as a pocket hit that didn't carry.

In order to define what a pocket hit is, you have to define the pocket and then if they hit it. There are other reasons why the shot might not have carried or even left an ugly split like entry angle, if the ball rolled out early, the target line was the wrong one, if the target line was even hit, was it the correct ball and so on. If you are going to say that you hit the pocket and left that back row single pin as lack of carrying for some of the same reasons, then why can't the 2-8-10/3-9-7, 4-9/6-8 or even a pocket 7-10 split as lack of carry and therefore be factored in to carry percentage? If you want to take those out then you have to come up with other statistics for those shots that weren't ideal and then it makes the carry percentage look better but it wouldn't be a true representation.

I will make an adjustment whether I was light and left a 2 or I was light and got a strike. I still contend, you are only looking at half the balls, by correlating it with pins left up. This ratio doesn't give me the info I would want.

I may hit the pocket 11- 10 times per game, but only strike 6. but, 3 of those 6 were not perfect. Is the ratio 6/10 or 3/10? I would say 3/10.

6/10 or 4 frames with pins left, doesn't tell me what I have made decisions to do.

There is always a reason for not carrying a TRUE pocket hit. Whether it be late to the pocket, early, high, thin, no drive, rolled out, too much angle, not enough angle, too much deflection, not enough deflection.

Thin to flush is where you want to be, high hits get you in trouble more often than not. Thin hits tend to carry better than high ones.

When leaving corner pins frequently, you can usually move 1/2 back on the approach and you will find that the carry is better. You can also switch to a slightly stronger ball or drill pattern. You can move your feet and target both outside further too, there are many options. Some will just stay where they are and hope to carry better later.

Are these cases where flat 10-pins(r even worst, 8-10 splits) occur? What happened if your 10-pin leave seemed solid? Assuming the pocket hit is solid/high, what are the reasons for 9-pins, 8-pins, 4-pins, and 7-pins, and what type of adjustments should be made? Knowing the reasons for leaving certain spares are quite important so since you're talking about it I figured I'd ask