Port Moody Curling Club :: Answers Week 1

Situation: I lost the toss

1) C

2) A

3) D

When you have the hammer you want to direct play to the corners so that if you need to draw to the button with your last shot the path is clear. When you don't have the hammer the strategy is to control the center to prevent that. You don't have hammer so A and C are better than B and D. The choice between in the rings and a gaurd depends on you teams game plan. In the first end most teams play a wide open cautious game while they map out how much curl the ice has etc. So in that case going into the rings at C is better than a gaurd at A. For the better shot between B and D, the corner gaurd at B is exactly what your opponents would throw if they want to start attacking, so thats not good for you. D is not bad as it also forces a wide open takeout game just on the outside of the sheet.

Situation: End Game

1) D

2) A

3) B

Yellow is up by three so Red needs gaurds. Yellow should peel any gaurds red puts up as soon as the FGZ is over. Any gaurds Yellow puts up just helps Red even if its a gaurd of thier own rock. That makes the gaurd at C a bad shot. B is a similarly poor because it too can be used as a gaurd or something to freeze to depending on how deep you throw it. Freezing to your own rock at D is a good shot as eventually Red will be forced to make a difficult double. Throwing the rock through the rings, A, is also a reasonable shot as almost no where else is particularly good. If things are set up fine and your opponent needs you to throw a mistake or they lose, you should never be afraid to throw one away.

Situation: Grand Theft Yellow

We found ourselves in this fortunate situation playing the yellow rocks. Unfortunately red scored one. What did we do wrong? We chose to freeze into the pile in the gap at C. The rock was a little too hard, rubbed off of one of the gaurds and made the hole leading to the button larger, giving the other team the chance to draw to the button.

In a situation like this you need to ask what can you accomplish with your rock and what is it you want to accomplish. In this circumstance there is no way to prevent your opponent from drawing to the 8 foot to cut you down to 2. There is no obvious takeout possible that would result in you getting less than 4. So Throwing the rock away results in you being up 5-0 or 7-0 depending on your opponents shot. Even though its early in the game both should be enough to win, so throwing the rock away is a possibility but there are ways you could safely make things better so its not a great choice. Making it possible for your opponent to score is bad, so throwing a rock at position B where a hit and roll to the button getting Red out of this mess is a bad shot. The other two shots are gaurds of the same option that red has to sneak through the gap. In a situation where you can gaurd and get Nth shot or gaurd short, and there is no runback, then we will always put the gaurd in the rings. When throwing this shot, everyone on the team should recognize the Pro side miss for this shot is to be short and let the sweepers drag it into the rings !

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