Ten-pin bowling may be won when one player is ahead by more frames than remain of the possible 12 frames. This variant reduces match length and scoring complexity for two-player matches. The maximum score in a game of ten-pin is 300, scored by making 12 strikes in a row. Before 1908, no one ever received an award for a game greater than 298. ABC used to award medals (gold, silver and bronze) for the three highest individual games rolled in the nation. The number of perfect games bowled during a season first became a problem for American Bowling Congress (ABC) officials in
Ten-pin bowling scores decline, often because they did not change their technique or bowling balls appropriately. Some argue that such high technology unfairly affects competition, making high scores too dependent on how much money one spends on equipment. The USBC, for various reasons, has struggled to regulate these changes well enough to protect the integrity of their honor score award program. The problem mostly stemmed from the feature of modern oil patterns, especially house patterns that help exhibit performance of modern bowling balls allegedly for marketing reasons. Every such pattern provides better odds to bowlers with certain line of bowling, release, ball