Bocce Ball Rules

The little nuances in bocce ball rules are as various as the regions the game is played in. There is a universal common ground that players all understand but the terms to describe game play are as different as the court lengths. But from the city parks of Honolulu Hawaii to the gardens of Rome, the general bocce ball rules are still the same. Get your bocce ball as close to the pallino ball as possible. Everything else is strategy.

1. Court length. Unless you are a crazy bastard constructing your own bocce ball court, you are probably stuck with whatever your city park offers. Generally speaking, a bocce ball court is anywhere from 75 to 90 feet long and at least ten feet wide.
2. Balls. Bocce ball rules regarding ball size and construction can vary but but there are basically two types available to players. One is the bocce ball and the other is called anything from the pallino, jack or boccino ball. This latter ball is smaller than the bocce balls but is important because it is the goal ball all the players aim for.
3. Game play boundaries. Regardless of how long the court is (think shorter for senior citizen courts), there is one boundary that is critical in bocce ball rules. This is the foul line that is used to start the game and it is usually about ten feet from the end of the court. The line is important because whichever team gets to throw the pallino first must get the ball behind this line.
4. Teams. Bocce ball rules dictate each team gets four bocce balls. This means you can have either one, two or four players per team.
5. Rules. A coin toss or spirited bout of nude Greco-Roman wrestling is used to determine which team goes first. Whoever wins throws the pallino ball which must stop behind the foul line. Then the player rolls or underhand tosses a bocce ball and tries to get as close to the pallino as possible. The opposing team bowls next and keeps going until they either get closer to the pallino or run out of bocce balls.
6. Scoring. When both teams have bowled all their bocce balls, the score is tallied. The rules dictate that only the team closest to the pallino is awarded points. One point is awarded for each bocce ball that is closer than the opposing teams closest bocce ball. Games are played anywhere from eleven to 21 points.
7. Strategy. Bocce ball seems mellow until some evil grandpa tosses his bocce ball and knocks your team's closest ball off into the distant which results in your team scoring zero points. According to the bocce ball rules, you can not only knock other players balls away from the pallino, you can also knock the pallino closer to your teams bocce balls. This makes player order extremely critical in matches. It is often wise to keep your best bowler last so he can mess up the other team if you are losing but there are endless strategies to mull over.