Bola

Invented by Wallace Haws in 1996 while on a scout outing. The most fun if no more than 6 players play and is guaranteed to be a big success.

Description: Game for 4 or 5 players using bowling balls. Similar to croquette
Materials: 4 bowling balls discarded and bought from a second hand store
The bowling balls are called “bolas”
shovel to dig holes large enough that a bowling ball will drop out of sight.
Set up: Dig 4 holes positioned roughly like the corners of a box where the sides of the square are roughly the distance you can throw a bola. Take into account the terrain you are playing on. It works best on nearly level ground with a few natural obstacles for interest.
Choosing who will go first.
Draw a line in the dirt about 30’ away from a start line. Everyone takes turns throwing. The closes to the line is first, etc. This is the order of play throughout the game.
Throws: The players throw by picking up their bola and throwing in any manner they choose toward their goal. They each take turns unless someone makes it into their next hole of sequence at which time he gets another throw.

Order of play. Following the determined order of play, each player on turn throws to hole 1 then hole 2 then hole 3 and then hole 4. The holes must be entered in the correct order.
Hits: When a player succeeds in throwing his bola into a hole he is entitled to one hit. You cannot save hits from hole to hole. You can choose use a “hit” between holes if you want but you cannot accumulate hits past one hole. ie you cannot add up hits. If you use a hit, you no longer have a hit until you successful enter your next hole in sequence. If you have a “hit” you can choose to throw the bola in such a manner as to hit another players bola. When that happens you no longer have another hit until you enter the next hole. But since you hit another bola, you can pick up that persons bola and toss it in any direction and as far as you want. You should strategize where you should throw the bola to cause the most advantage for you later. When you throw it, the person who owns the bola can run as fast as he can to stop the bola before it goes too far. After you have thrown the other bola that you hit, you pick up your bola and get one more throw. In this manner you can actually get more than one throw in a turn. If in a single throw you had hit more than one bola you can one at a time pick up their bolas and toss them all before you continue your turn, but you only get one throw of your bola after this regardless of how many bolas you hit. When you get into the next hole, you are entitle to a hit again. So be careful how you use your “hits”.

Poison: Hole 4 is the poison hole. After you get through 1,2,3 and 4 you are poison. This means if you hit other bolas, they are out of the game. If you succeed in poisoning all of the players except one, there are now two players---you and one other bola. Now there are two ways to win at this point. Either you hit the other bola and win; or you are the other bola player is the first one to roll into the hole 4 and the game is over and that bola wins. This occurs on regular turns as usual. In this manner the person that has not even made it into one hole can still win if he can avoid being poisoned and is the first to roll into hole 4 when there are just the two players. Therefore, the poison bola needs to take care when he chooses to poison other players and whose turn is who.

There is one except to the manner of turns. When a bola is poison, if he hits someone and poisons them, he takes another turn regardless of how many hits he has made on a turn. For example. Suppose bola 1 makes it into poison. Naturally he is entitled to throw again because he made it into the hole. Now if he rolls toward bola 2 and hits it, bola 2 is out of the game and bola one takes another roll. If bola one hits bola 3, 3 is out of the game and he takes another roll. If he hits bola 4 the game is over and bola 1 wins.