Game 10 and 11 Recaps

Wow.  That was a bit of a layoff.  Surprisingly, I haven't had any days with zero hits.  It was probably helpful that I posted the gift guide.  (Thanks to the anonymous person that actually clicked on an amazon link and bought something.)

You might notice that I haven't posted a Game 9 Recap.  This is because the team canceled on us like two days before our scheduled game.  So I scheduled a makeup game and they said they could make it and then the day before they cancel again.  I'm a little miffed (just tell me that you can't make it.)  Lead thinks we should force a forfeit from them since they canceled twice.  There's a tiny chance this might matter in the final standings as we're both A level teams.

I'll recap Game 11 first.  I had my whole team together and we're playing a D level team so they got three points.  This was definitely the worst game of the season, at least one where there wasn't a teammate missing.  Vice believes (and I agree) that we were kind of intimidated by the three point handicap.  We really tried to score big ends and it ended up backfiring.  In the first end, the other team stole 2 and we're looking at 5-0 and that's just tough to see.  It's possible that if I had played more conservatively, we would have chipped away at the score.  I didn't though.  I think the final score was something like 10-2.  Just bad.

Game 10 was a tough game.  Our opponents were a C level team.  This surprised me because they had beaten us handily at the Novice Bonspiel a couple years ago.  We were fighting to keep pace the whole game.  In the eighth end, we were down three, but had hammer.  Surprisingly, the opposing skip had missed both of his takeouts and we were able to tie up the game and take it to an extra end.  We played one rock each, but they had hammer.  I'm looking at this for my shot. 

Vice and I considered playing a guard for our rock in the house (1).  The opposing skip had made takeouts for the game and thought we might as well force a draw to the button.  Perhaps if the opposing skip hadn't done too well on takeouts, we might have tried for a guard/top of the house type shot (2).  But then we decided to just draw to the button and hopefully get behind the guard (3).  But alas, the rock picked (not blaming Vice's beard for this one) so the rock was in the open.

Now, the other skip didn't throw a takeout.  Probably a good idea to make sure the rock stays in play.  But I think most people would have thrown the rock with back line weight or maybe a little more and use my rock as a backstop.  The opposing skip actually threw light.  His teammates were furiously sweeping and then we end up having to measure the rocks.  His rock was closer by 2mm.  Oh well.

With these two games, the record is now 6-4 with the competitive record remaining at 2-2. 

Game 5 Recap

This past game was against a C level team and they got one point.  I was surprised at this because I know that this team (at the very least their skip) has played in some international type competitions.  They were playing with only 3 while I had my regular team together.

I think this game might have been determined by the front end play.  This just wasn't a good night for the opposing first as only a handful of his rocks would stay in play during the game.  In the second end, this helped lead to my team having all 6 rocks in play before I even threw my first rock and no opposing stones; we stole three in that end. 

Now, the final score was (I believe) 7-4 after 6 ends, but I have to say that the opposing skip had some really lucky shots.  One of them was pretty similar to my own luckiest shot (he missed his original shot, but made an unbelievable double raise to score two).  The other lucky shot came in the fourth end.  I don't remember exactly what all was happening on the left side, but no one was going to draw on that side.  The opposing skip draws to the right side.  The rock looks like it's going through the house and Vice gets ready to sweep it, when all of a sudden, it picks on something in the house and makes a sharp right turn to land on the button.  They score one. 

Afterward, we looked under the rock and we found a hair.  We believe that it's one of Vice's beard hairs.  If this happens again, I'm going to make him shave or wear a surgical mask or something. 

Our record is now 4-1 and our competitive record remains at 1-1.  I'm wondering if we'll be bumped up to A level soon.  I feel weird about that; I can't imagine anyone thinking that my team is one of the best in the league.  It's not like we have matching outfits or play multiple times a week or go to lots of bonspiels or have really expensive equipment (only Vice and I have curling shoes). 

Also on this subject, I've always felt that our handicaps are based on small sample size (in my case, two of my wins came against D level teams and one against a C level).  It'd be cool if someone could come up with a BCS type algorithm, maybe take the final scores into account to come up with a ranking that's a little less subjective.  Just a thought.