A scoreboard on the wall is faster and clearer than a phone, and everyone in the room can see where the game stands at a glance.

Scoring by hand also does something for your play that an app does not. Subtracting from 501 in your head, repeatedly, is how checkout combinations stop needing to be looked up — which is the part of the game that takes longest to learn.

Dry wipe boards are quicker and cleaner for a casual game; chalk stays legible through a long match and does not smear. Electronic scoring pads handle the arithmetic for you and cover multiple players, which is where manual scoring gets tedious on a social night.