Bocce ball is played with eight large bowling balls that target a small ball. Each team gets four balls, and a team can have one, two or four players. The object of bocce ball is for each team to roll its balls as close to the target ball, called a pallino, as possible, according to "The Everything Games Book." A game that resembles modern-day bocce was first played by the early Romans.
Starting the Game
The game starts with a coin toss. The team that wins the coin toss pick the color of ball it wants to use. The first player then tosses the pallino onto the bocce court from behind a foul line. The player then rolls her bocce ball as close to the target ball as she can. The other team then has a chance to aim a bocce ball at the pallino. The team that has the ball closest to the target is now called the "inside" team.
Scoring
The "inside" team steps aside, and the "outside" team gets to throw until it gets a ball "inside" or until that team runs out of balls to throw, according to Collegium Cosmicum Ad Buxeas, an international bocce organization. After all of the balls are thrown, one point is given for each ball that is closer to the target than the other team's balls. This means that only the team with the most "inside" balls gets points. The winning team gets the first throw in the next match. The team that gets nine points first wins that round of bocce.
Bowling and Throwing
A player is allowed to knock one of the other team's balls into a different position. However, the player must call his throw as a "punto," or a ball thrown in attempt to make a point, a "raffa," or a ball thrown at a target bocce ball, or a "volo," which is an aerial throw aimed at a target bocce ball, according to Collegium Cosmicum Ad Buxeas.
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