Five-pin bowling
Five-pin bowling is a bowling variant which is played in Canada, where many bowling alleys offer it, either alone or in combination with ten-pin bowling. It was devised around 1909 by Thomas F. Ryan in Toronto, Ontario, at his Toronto Bowling Club, in response to customers who complained that the ten-pin game was too strenuous. He cut five tenpins down to about 75% of their size, and used hand-sized hard rubber balls, thus inventing the original version of five-pin bowling. Gameplay. The balls in five pin bowling are small enough to fit  in the hand and therefore typically have no fingerholes, although the Canadian 5 Pin Bowlers Association (C5PBA) have approved balls with thumb holes made by one manufacturer (the E. Parrella Co., known as EPCO). At the end of the lane there are five pins arranged in a V. They are midway in size between duckpins and ten pins, and they have a heavy rubber band around their middles to make them move farther when struck. Unlike any other form of bowling popular in North America, the pins in five-pin bowling are worth different scoring point values, depending on their  location in the V-formation. The centre pin is worth five points if knocked down, those on either side, three each, and the outermost pins, two each, giving a total of 15 in each frame. In each frame, each player gets three attempts to knock all five pins over. Knocking all five pins down with the first ball is a strike, worth 15 points plus the score achieved by the player's first two balls of the next frame are added to the score for the strike; the count in the frame where the first strike was bowled is left  blank until the bowler makes their first delivery of the next frame. As those points are also counted in their own frame, in effect they count double. A player who takes two balls to knock all the pins down gets a spare, which means the first ball of the next frame counts double. When a bowler bowls two strikes in succession, within a game, the bowler has scored a "double". When a double has been bowled, the count for the first strike is 30 points plus the value of the pins bowled down with the first ball of the frame  following the second strike. When a bowler bowls three strikes in succession, within a game, the bowler has scored a "triple" (also called a "turkey"). In scoring three successive strikes, the bowler is credited with 45 points in the frame where the first strike was bowled. As in ten-pin, if either of these happen in the last frame, the player gets to take one or two shots at a re-racked set of pins immediately. A perfect score is 450, requiring 12 consecutive strikes bowled in the same game without fouling. It does not happen as frequently as in  tenpin bowling. The C5PBA sanctions from 15 to 30 perfect games annually. Originally the pins counted as (from left to right) 4 - 2 - 1 - 3 - 5 points. In 1952 the president of the Canadian Bowling Association proposed changing the scoring system to 2 - 3 - 5 - 3 - 2. That was accepted in the west in 1952, in Ontario in 1953, and in the rest of Canada in 1954. In 1967 the Canadian Bowling Congress decided to abolish the counter pin (the left counter pin had to be knocked down to score any points). The counter pin was the right 2-pin  for left-handed bowlers. The rule change went in effect in 1968 in eastern Canada, but the Western Canada 5-pin Bowling Association rejected the change, and as a result there were no national championships until 1972 after the west accepted abolishing the counter pin. (Although some leagues continued with the counter pin system for several more years.) Five-pin bowling allows for more strategy in its play than the ten-pin variant, because of the differing point values for each pin. For example: If a player fails to score a strike in 10-pin bowling, it is less important  how the player chooses to resolve the remaining pins, as all pins are valued the same, and knocking down more results in higher points. In five-pin bowling on the other hand, if a player misses a strike, he or she has to make a strategic decision as to which set of remaining pins they should attempt to knock down (beyond simply trying for them all), which allows players a means to minimize their losses after a mistake, by aiming for the higher-scoring group of pins, or for the lower but perhaps more easily struck group. Terminology. Five-pin  bowlers use a number of terms to denote the results of a throw: Mechanics of the game (pin-setting). All modern bowling centres use automated pin-setting machines (first used in 1957) to reset the pins after each ball is thrown. In five-pin, two types of pinsetters are used—"string" and "free fall". "String" pinsetters were first invented in 1963 and are characterized by a string being attached to the head of each pin. This type of pinsetter has a low operating cost, so it is the most commonly used type of pinsetter. There are three families of string pinsetters : The most common stop on string pinsetters is a string tangle. The "free fall" pinsetter works like ten-pin. A reset is completed by sweeping the old pins off the pindeck and setting a fresh set of pins in its place. The swept pins are elevated back to the top to create the next setup. Free fall pinsetters for 5-pin are no longer made due to high operation and maintenance costs. There were three common types of free fall pinsetters: Bowlers must initiate all free-fall pinsetter cycles. The five-pin free-fall pinsetter does not automatically react to  a ball rolled or pin knocked down. When bowling on free fall pinsetters, the bowler would have to press a button to initiate a pick-up cycle to clear downed pins lying on the pin deck. If automatic scoring is in use, all automatic resets are actually initiated by the scoring computers. The lower operating and maintenance costs of the string pinsetter eventually led to the demise of free-fall pinsetters. When a bowling centre retires free-fall pinsetters, the old machines are usually bought by other free-fall equipped bowling centres and are disassembled for parts. Free fall pinsetters  are still in service in some bowling centres in British Columbia, Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec. As of early 2018 free fall is still located in the following locations. These centers use Double Diamond machines. The last national tournaments that were conducted using free fall pinsetters were parts of the 2014 YBC and Masters Nationals – held in Winnipeg. The Double Diamond machines were upgraded to strings shortly after these tournaments. Major tournaments. There are four groups overseeing the major tournaments in five pin bowling. Qualifying for a national championship usually requires three qualifying rounds. Each province also offers a number of  tournaments that conclude with the provincial finals. The tournaments, formats and prize offerings vary by province. These tournaments are operated through the Provincial Bowling Proprietors Association, local and provincial five pin associations, and individual bowling centres.