JYLY tips and what a good score is

The scoring in one line

Five putts a round, each make worth its distance in metres, and the next round from 5 m plus one metre per make. Twenty rounds. The maximum is 1,000.

The rule that shapes everything is the last one. A make scores now and makes the next round harder; a miss scores nothing and makes the next round easier. The game is always pulling you toward the distance where you make about three of five putts.

What a good score is

If you make a fraction p of your putts, the game settles around a distance of about 5 + 5p metres, because the expected number of makes is 5p. The expected score per game is then about 20 × 5p × (5 + 5p). That is arithmetic, not a claim about any player.

So 400 is roughly a 52% putter, 500 a 62% putter, 600 a 70% putter and 700 an 80% putter. Those are useful landmarks, not an official scale. The only published best in the sources is 726 of 1,000, from a writer describing their own game. There is no JYLY statistics body and no database of scores, so treat any “average” you see, including these, as arithmetic rather than evidence.

Mark the distances once

The game needs six spots, 5 to 10 m from the basket, one metre apart. Measure them once with a tape and leave a marker at each: a tee, a stone, a strip of tape. Measure the same way every session, so one day's score compares with the next. In feet, 5 m is 16 ft 5 in and 10 m is 32 ft 10 in.

With fewer than five putters, putt and walk back, or putt back and forth between two baskets; the original rules allow it. It takes longer, but the scoring is the same: a hundred putts, twenty rounds, the distance set by the last round's makes.

Pace yourself round by round

Twenty rounds is long enough to have a bad start and still finish well. The board shows your score and the best score still possible from the current distance; the pace line compares you with your own best game after the same number of rounds. Use the pace line, not the points, to decide whether you are having a good game: it accounts for the distances you have actually faced.

A steady 24 points a round is 480. A round of 10 is not a disaster if the next one is 30; a round of 40 followed by 10 usually means the first one was luck and the second was the distance it bought.

Practise where the game puts you

If you make about half your putts, most of your rounds are from 7 to 8 m. Spending all your practice at 10 m trains the shot you face least. Spend most of it at 7 to 9 m and the equilibrium moves back by itself.

The game's per-distance table under the board shows where your makes actually come from. If 6 m is worse than 8 m, that is the distance to work on, even though it feels easier.

Long mode

Long mode runs from 11 to 15 m with a maximum of 1,500. The same formula applies with a base of 11: a 60% putter settles near 14 m and scores about 840. It is a harder game and a different practice target. Chains plays only the standard 5 to 10 m game, so on this site the board labels Long mode as a web-only variant and keeps its scores apart from your standard games.

Playing with other people

JYLY is easy to play in a group because each player's distance is independent. The web board takes up to four players and the club scorecard does the same on paper. Set the markers once, then each player plays their own 20 rounds in turn.