Bocce Ball Directions

Choose your playing area. Corey Aaron Burkes recommends a space approximately 60 feet by 12 feet. Any open space will work. Hills or slopes in the playing area will give your game an added challenge.

Choose your balls. Bocce balls usually come in sets of eight (four balls of each color). You can play with two individuals or two teams of two or four members. Each individual or team will use one color (or pattern) of balls. The remainder of these instructions will describe play for two teams with two members each.

Player one throws the pallino into the playing area. This is the smaller ball included in the bocce ball set.

Player one then throws one of his bocce balls. The goal is get as close as possible to the pallino.

A player from the second team now throws, trying to get closer to the pallino than player one. If she is closer, it is team one's turn again (players on a team alternate turns).

Play alternates from one team to the other each time a team is successful in getting its ball closest to the pallino.

Once players have thrown all of the bocce balls, tally the score. Each ball of the closest team that is closer than any of the other team's balls earns a point.

Pick up all of the bocce balls and the pallino.

The second team throws the pallino on the second round, and play continues as described above.

Continue playing rounds with teams alternating throwing the pallino until one team reaches a score of 13.