Counting Marks

Counting marks is a old way of estimating who was ahead, at anytime during a game without having to tally up the score. It was used mainly before the advent of automatic scoring systems.
It's based on a simple system of adding up the number of strikes and spares during a game.

Here's how it was done.
A strike is one mark, a double is two marks, a turkey is three.
A spare is one mark.
There is also a "take off a mark." where you remove or not add a mark because a bowler scored five or less on a spare or double.
There is also "Handicap Marks". Typically it is 1 mark for every 10 pins in the difference of team handicap.
Example, if your team is getting spotted 34 pins, you would get 3 handicap marks.
If there is a absent bowler, they would receive marks also. Based on the "The Absent Bowler's Marks Table"

"The Absent Bowler's Marks Table"
Average---Marks
184-Over---10
174-183-----9
164-173-----8
154-163-----7
144-153-----6
134-143-----5
124-133-----4
114-123-----3
104-113-----2
94-103------1
under 94----0