Important information for both bocce veterans and newcomers.
Bocce Basics . . . Skip this section if you played Turbo Bocce before.
If you don’t know anything about bocce at all, watch this video . . . if you know how to play bocce don’t bother.
Now that you know what basic bocce ball is, you can learn about what makes Turbo Bocce so special.
Turbo Bocce is unique in a lot of ways, but the four most important ways are, (1) the starting box, (2) the turbo round, (3) individual statistics, (4) the bounty stystem:
(1) Everybody stands on a mat, or a “starting box” when they throw. When you win the point you get to choose where to place the mat and where to throw the target ball, called a pallino. You can throw it anywhere so long as you throw it longer than five feet and shorter than fifty feet.
(2) Turbo Bocce is named after the turbo round, which is our way of making the game a little faster and more exciting by avoiding all the boring measuring. If two balls are tied, instead of pulling out a measuring tape and painstakingly determining which is closer, we have the two players who threw the tied balls, re-throw a sudden death round, and whoever is closer wins the point.
One addendum to the turbo round rule, if you are really sure your ball is in, you get a challenge. When you challenge we get the measuring tape and determine who is closer. If your ball is closer you get to challenge again. If yours is not, you lose your challenges for the day.
(3) Turbo Bocce keeps four main statistics that you can win medals for, and follow for bragging rights.
Points – which is self explanatory
Bocces – when the other team is in for a point and you knock them out
Ace – when your ball is touching the pallino
Debocce – when you are in for a point and you accidentally knock your own ball out
(4) Every time you play bocce with us you have a chance to win money. We do this by choosing two teams at random (and in secret) to be the “bounty team.” If you happen to play the bounty team, and you beat them two games out of three, you win money. If you lose, the money gets put back into the pot so that the prize is bigger next week. So be on the lookout, you might just get a tap on the shoulder telling you that if you win you get some cold hard cash!
If you want to learn more about the nuts and bolts of Turbo Bocce read this article on Turbo Bocce’s top 10 innovations.
Choosing a Name . . . skip this section if you already know your team’s name.
Click HERE to read a whole bunch of possible bocce team names. You can pick one if you want, or maybe just use it as inspiration to think up your own name.
Rule Changes . . . Everybody should read up on Turbo Bocce’s changes and new rules for this year.
There are two rule changes for this year.
First, no league player can play as a substitute for another team during the playoffs.
Second, there has been a tweak to our BCS formula. For those who are unaware, the BCS is how we rank teams in the standings. Since there too many teams in our league to play all of them, some teams will randomly end up playing more difficult schedules than others. The idea of the BCS is to give those teams who end up playing a more difficult schedule some credit for it.
Until this year we determined BCS by adding your winning percentage to your opponents winning percentage, but we have come to realize that this formula gives a little too much credit to who you play, and not enough credit to how much you win, so we are tweaking it.
The new BCS formula is, your winning percentage doubled plus your opponents winning percentage. The new formula gives you some credit for playing good teams, but far more credit for winning, which we think is the way it should be.
Its probably a good idea to look over all our rules, and you can do that HERE. The new rules are in bold.
Other Turbo Bocce changes . . .
The Bounty teams will be playing on golden mats this year. In the past it was hard to know who the bounty team turned out to be, now you can easily identify them by the golden starting box they will be using.
We are at Sharkey’s now, instead of Onondaga Lake Park, and that involves a few changes. The bad news is you can no longer bring your own alcohol to bocce. The good news is Turbo Bocce will now be able to provide better beer for $5 than we ever have before, and you can buy anything Sharkey’s has to offer right from our field.
You can now pay $100 at the beginning of the season instead of paying $50 and $5 every week if you want to. Doing this gets you two free weeks of eating and drinking.
