Introduction To Curling Strategy

"Plan your work, and work your plan."

Legendary football coach, and Superbowl trophy namesake, Vince Lombardi best described a team strategy by saying "plan your work, and work your plan". The idea works the same in curling as it does in football. An essential element of our sport is the ability to decide what plan to pursue, and how exactly to pursue it. This is called strategy. 

This diagram displays the general idea for what strategy should be played when a team has the hammer, and when a team does not have last-rock advantage. 

The image shows that when you have the hammer, it is best to keep the middle of the sheet open. This way, if things get complicated the final skip's rock can always be used to draw to the button to win the point. 

Without hammer, your strategy should be to make the last shot of the end as difficult as possible for the opponent skip. Throwing rocks towards the centre, and cutting down the scoring area for the last rock is the best way to pursue this goal. Ideally, the opponent will not have a way to get to the button with their last rock.

When losing (down) it is a good idea to keep a lot of rocks in play, in an attempt to force your opponents into playing more difficult shots, while hoping for a miss. To accomplish this, keeping guards in front of the house is a good idea. These rocks give you more scoring options, as they can be run back, tapped in, or used as a guard to hide behind. 

When you are winning (up) the goal should be to keep things as simple as possible. Since you don't need to score a bunch of points, bring play into the house. Avoid guards, and when they do get thrown don't be afraid to peel them off the sheet. Playing open hits in the house is the ideal in this scenario. 

This is the general idea that most teams pursue, however strategy is an ever-evolving aspect of the game. No matter what strategy your team decides to follow, it is important that you have a predetermined plan that you can implement when you hit the ice.