One-player team:: Each player throws all four balls
Two-player team::Each player throws two balls
Four-player team::Each player throws one ball. The teams split up: two players from each team play on opposite sides of the court.
Playing surface: The playing surface should be reasonably level, covered with packed sand, clay, dirt, fine gravel, oyster shells, short grass, or a manufactured surface.
Regulation bocce courts are 91x13 feet with or without sideboards and backboards, but a backyard setup can be 60x10 or 60x12, with a center court line and two foot fault lines ten feet from each end. Sideboards and backboards make for more interesting play because shots can be banked or rebounded off the walls.
Standing behind the foot-fault line and throwing underhand, the first players rolls the pallino, which has to come to rest somewhere beyond the center line of court. To be a legal throw, it can't hit the back wall or bounce out of the court. If the first throw isn't successful-- or if the player steps over the fault line while throwing-- the other team gets a chance to throw the pallino.
Once the pallino is placed properly, the original starting player or team rolls the first bocce ball.
The first player rolls one ball as close to the pallino as possible. Then it's up to the opposing player/team to roll a ball (as many as it takes) closer to the pallino than the starting ball-- or to hit the pallino and/or any ball on the court to get them closer to the pallino.
If the opposing team uses all four balls and fails to get closer to the pallino than the starting ball, the starting team rolls its remaining balls, trying to place them closer than the opponents' closest ball. Each one that's closer scores 1 point.
If the opposing team succeeds in placing one of their balls closer to the pallino, they stop rolling and the starting team rolls to try to get closer. If the starting team succeeds, the turn reverts to the second team, and so on.
If a bocce ball hits the backboard, that ball is out of play.
The frame/inning is over when all the balls have been played.
Only one team will score, the team whose ball is closest to the pallino: 1 point is awarded for each of its balls that are closer to the pallino than the closest opposing team's ball. A team can score from 1 to 4 points a frame.
No points are awarded if the closest ball of each team is equal in distance from the pallino.
The team that scores in a frame starts the next frame by throwing out the pallino and playing their first ball. Play continues until a team wins by reaching a score of 12 points.
There are many more ways to score: Games can be played to 10 or 20 points, bonus points can be awarded for the win, and so on.
You may find yourself playing on a bocce court that has pallino fault lines four feet from each back wall. If so, your pallino throw has to come to rest past the center line and before the pallino fault line to be legal.
Bocce is nearly identical to the French game of Boules or Petanque.
Lawn Bowls is Bocce's British cousin. The game is similar, but it's played with bowls (balls) that are not perfect spherical, so that they always curve toward the flat side as they slow down. The target ball is called a "jack." The general rules of Lawn Bowls vary from region to region.