We play poker where you get a card for a strike or spare, two for a double (and each consecutive strike; not three for a triple, four for a four-bagger,...). You can only keep five cards. If you don't have too many people you can get rid of the only-five-cards rule. Buy-in is $1/game. More than eight people in a game tends to make it tough to get a decent hand, there aren't really enough cards to go around with one deck. We get 6-9 people per hand in a normal week, and it's not always the guy throwing 300 that wins. Every week we usually have at least one person with a 150 average win a hand (even shooting their average).
We also have a $2 handicap bracket. The money's small enough that sandbagging for the bracket isn't worth it, and the handicap helps level the field. I usually have to explain how it works to new people though ("You give me $2, I tell you if you win"). As you'd expect, it's usually a crap-shoot and we get almost random people in the final match each week.
Finally, we do a bowling Survivor game that runs throughout the season. $5 buy-in for the whole thing, everyone is split into two teams with the lowest person on the lower team out each week until half are eliminated. Then the rest are merged into one "team", and the low person is out each week. We're down to our final two now, and both average around 150. We eliminated the last high-average person last week, and it was the same last season when we did it. I emphasize that one doesn't have to bowl really well all the time (especially for the team part), just don't bowl a lot under your average, and you have good odds to get far. Consistent people tend to do well since there are almost always a few people each night that bowl badly (until the very end). If you want more details, PM me and I'll send you the rules I use. It was very popular last year with our group.
SH
