Bolo palma
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bolo palma is a variant of bowls played throughout the north of Spain. Although played a lot in the Basque Country, it would appear that the game originated in neighbouring Asturias or Cantabria. Records of the game go back as far as the 16th century. The basic aim of the game is the knock over as many pins as possible with a wooden ball.
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[edit] The set-up
The playing field or bolera is between 30-34m long and 8m wide and roughly split into three areas, the zona de tira (launch zone; jaurtitzeko aldea in in Basque), the middle area or caja or zona de bolos and the zona de birle (pin zone; birlatzeko aldea in Basque).
The first section is the zona de tira, the rectangular launching zone 8m wide and 20m long from where the players launch the ball. There are circles on the ground called tiros which mark different foot positions for the players.
The caja straddles the zona de tira and the zona de birle at the far end. It also has a borderline to its front called fleja. Here, there are 9 wooden bolos (pins) with a metal base (argolla or anilla in Spanish), about 45cm tall and 5cm diameter, weighing between 550-630g. These are placed on pegs in a 3x3 square exactly straddling both zonas. There is also a tenth pin called emboque or cachi (txakina in Basque) which is smaller and off to one side.
The ball itself is spherical, about 12-18cm in diameter and made of oak, sometimes with a lead centre to make the ball heavier. It usually weighs between 1.5-2.3kg.
[edit] The game
Every game consists of two phases:
- Tiro: the shot, where the player launches the ball from the launching area.
- Birle: the second shot where the player is allowed to launch the ball again from the position it landed in the tiro.
In the first phase, the player stands on the tiro, at least 12m and at the most 20m away from the nearest pin depending on the distance selected. The player then launches to ball upwards into the air, employing a number of different techniques depending on whether the emboque is to the left or the right of the caja.
Any pin knocked over is worth one point but if only the central pin is knocked over, two points are won. After having thrown three balls, the player passes over to the zona de birle. They are then allowed to bowl the three balls again from where they fell in the first throw, a move called birlar (birlatu in Basque). If a ball comes to rest very close to two pins, a special move called segar in which the player knocks over the close pins while aiming for others.
A bola queda is a bad ball that cannot be re-thrown. The most common causes of a bad ball is a ball that touches the ground before crossing the fleja, a ball that lands on the fleja, when the ball does not cross the line of the emboque and when the ball first touches the ground to the right or left of the caja
There are a number of ways in which this game can be won, either by reaching an agreed number of knocked over pins (usually between 20 and 40), by throwing eight balls and meeting a variety of challenges and so on.
[edit] References
- Zorilla, J. Bola Jokoa/El juego de bolos, exhibition brochure by the Culture Department of the Bizkaiko Foru Aldundia (Regional Government of Bizkaia), Bilbao 2006, ISBN 84-88916-96-5
