Bocce ball rules

1. One team throws the pallino — the small target ball — down the court.
2. The same team throws the first bocce ball.
3. From then on, whichever team is not closest to the pallino throws next. That is the rule that makes bocce a thinking game rather than an alternating one.
4. When all balls are thrown, the frame is scored and the pallino goes back the other way.

That third rule is worth reading twice. If your ball is closest, you stop throwing and your opponent keeps going until they beat you — so a great first throw hands the initiative to the other side.

At the end of a frame, find the team whose ball is closest to the pallino. That team scores one point for each of its balls that is closer than the opposing team's closest ball. The other team scores nothing.

• Your ball closest, opponent's next → you score 1.
• Your two closest, then theirs → you score 2.
• All four of yours closer than any of theirs → you score 4.

Because only one side scores, a frame can be salvaged with a single good throw right at the end. It also means knocking an opponent's ball away is worth exactly as much as placing your own well.

Almost nobody has an 86.92-by-13.12-foot prepared court, and bocce does not require one. Here is how to play properly on an ordinary lawn, a beach or a park.

1. Pick a throwing line and stick to it. A path edge, a paving slab, a dropped towel. Everything else follows from having one fixed line.
2. Agree a minimum pallino distance. On a court, the pallino has to cross a marked line. On a lawn, agree something equivalent — “past that tree” works fine. Without it, someone will drop the pallino at their feet.
3. Agree what is out. The flowerbed, the patio, past the fence. A ball that goes out is simply removed for that frame.
4. The lie is part of the game. On grass, slopes and bumps affect every roll. That is not a defect; it is the difference between lawn bocce and court bocce, and it rewards reading the ground.
5. Move the throwing line each frame. Play back the other way from wherever the balls ended up, exactly as you would on a court. It keeps the lawn from wearing in one place too.

The one thing worth having: something to measure with. Two balls that look equally close usually are not, and the argument is the least fun part of bocce. Some sets ship with a measuring rope — see best bocce ball sets.

The roll (punto). Roll the ball along the ground to finish close to the pallino. The default shot, and the one that wins most frames.

The hit (raffa or bocciata). Throw hard to knock an opponent's ball away — or to move the pallino itself, which can turn a losing frame into a winning one in a single throw.

Moving the pallino is the move most casual players never think of, and it is the one that makes bocce genuinely tactical. If your opponent has three balls clustered around the pallino, do not try to out-roll all three: knock the pallino somewhere else.

Court dimensions if you are considering building one: bocce court dimensions.