10 quick rules you need to know to play the best game of your life
- Grab a set of bocce balls – a set contains 8 balls + a target ball called the pallino (4 balls each to a color)
- Choose your teams – bocce can be played by two single players or teams of up to 8 players
- Find a court – an olympic sized court is 13′ x 90′ but you can play on courts as small as 10′ x 60′ (anything smaller may become to gimmicky)
- Choose a team to go first – flip a coin or just put the pallino behind your back and have someone chose the hand it’s in. The opposing team who did not win the coin toss will choose their color
- Throw the pallino – to start the game, the pallino must cross the half court line
- The team who throws the pallino will always throw first – this ball can go anywhere on the court (as long as it does not hit the back wall)
- The second team throws their first ball – the objective is to get closer to the pallino than your opponents ball
- Next throw – the team that has the closest ball to the pallino does not throw again until (a) their opponent gets closer (b) the opponent runs out of balls. Continue until all 8 balls have been thrown
- Scoring at the end of a frame – one point for each ball that is closer than the closest ball of the opponent. Tally points and continue to the next frame.
- Head to the next frame – switch ends of the court to start the next frame. The team who scored points will throw the pallinon and first ball (repeat from 5).