Game 4 Recap

This time we're playing a team on the competitive list and our first A level team of the season.  My team got a handicap of 1 point.  Their team had only two losses last year, so I think the 1 point is justified.

For the first two ends, my play was really terrible.  I hogged my first three rocks and my fourth rock was way off line.  Fortunately, the opposing skip also was having an off night and after two ends, my team was up 4-0. 

Then, they took control for the next two ends.  Here's a diagram for one of the shots they made. 

The skip would tell me later this was  luck, but at the time, I was thinking, "That's why they're A level".  I would happen to make a nice (lucky) shot to turn what could have been a score of 4 for them to a score of 2 so that was a relief.

So after the fourth end, my team is up 4-3.  In the fifth end, their team completely broke down.  By the opposing skip's second shot, my team is sitting 4 and they have just one rock in play up front.  And surprisingly, the opposing skip hogged his shot.  Wow.  Like everyone else, Vice and I will point out where we would like the rock to end up before setting the broom.  This time however, Vice pointed to the entire house and said anywhere.  I had just enough on the shot and we scored 5. 

In the next end, Lead made a couple really nice biters.  The opposing skip went for the takeout both times, except that left their rocks in front of the house.  Was that the right strategy?  I'm not sure.   Would it have been better just to try to draw behind them?  The takeout was the much more reliable shot, but I think you want as many rocks in play in an effort to score at least 3.

Anyway, everyone made their takeouts and they only scored one for that end.  That was the game after 6 ends.  This brings the record to 3-1 with a 1-1 record vs. "competitive" teams.

Game 3 Recap

Got the team back together for the first time this season so that was fun.  Our opponents get a two point handicap and we would also learn that this was their first year in the league.  This was only their second game as they were a replacement team after a team no showed their first week.  They were definitely new to curling as I had to give a couple explanations on rules during the game. 

My team played very well during the game.  The final score was 11-5 and my team's score might have been better if the third end had gone better. 

So we're in the third end and the score is 7-2.  My team is yellow and after Lead's rocks, things are looking good for this end with a rock buried.  I called a draw (1) for Second and then he was short with his first shot.  I compounded this call with my next call for him to draw even further to the side (2) and he was short again.  In Second's defense, I should have called for a lot more weight on these shots as that ice really hadn't been used that much by this point in the game.

As it turns out, by the time my shots came around they were sitting two.  My second shot was completely messed up and I raised one of their rocks in and they ended up scoring three. Fortunately, that end was a wakeup call for my team and we got ourselves back on track after that end. 

I'm not sure calling rocks in the house on that side was the correct call.  My feeling at the time was that my team didn't have hammer for that end and I could force them to try to take out our rocks.  I wasn't going to call any shots on the other side as a miss may have raised the opponents' stone.  Maybe another center guard would have been helpful.  In that case, a raise takeout for the opponents would be difficult and drawing to either side would be useless unless they find a way to take out the rock on the button.

Anyway, after the game, the opposing skip said, "Thanks for the education".  So I guess he learned a couple things during the game. 

FYI, this game brings our record to 2-1, but our record against "competitive" teams remains at 0-1.

One more thing.  My team is interested in finding one more person to play with them for the novice bonspiel (since I aged out).  Let me know if you'd like to play with my very fun teammates.

Bonspiel Update

So I have found a bonspiel to go to.  I will be at the Fireball Bonspiel with my brother, a Bond Girl, and her husband.  All are flying from California just for this.  Well, my brother is also going to spend Thanksgiving up here. 

Since a Bond Girl is involved, we are likely to stream our games online.  Our video stream would be much better if there's commentary, and as I've written previously, doing curling commentary is a lot of fun, especially if you're with a friend.  We would love it if you did commentary for our games.  I'll have to talk to the Bond Girls about this, but maybe we can give you a Bond Girls sticker or some other swag as a token of our appreciation.

Also, my brother leaves late on Saturday night of the bonspiel so if we're playing on Sunday (which would be a first for me in several years), we'd need a sub.  (In his defense, the plane tickets for leaving the Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend were a lot cheaper compared to Sunday.)  Anyway, let me know if you could be an alternate for my team. 

Looking forward to it and maybe I'll meet some of you there. 

Game 2 Recap

Our game 2 opponent was a fairly new team to the club as this season is only their second season.  We got a 2 point handicap as a result.  Lead was back for the game, but I learned that Vice was sick roughly an hour before the game.  E-mails to my normal subs and asking people on Twitter did not come up with anything so we played with three people.  Lead and Second had good draw weight for most of the game, which made things so much easier for me.  We stole several ends and we won the game 7-3.  This brings our record to 1-1.  For the "competitive" teams, our record remains at 0-1.  (I've decided to separately keep track of our record against "competitive" teams to give myself an idea as to what would have happened if the league realignment had actually occurred."  The opposing skip has definitely improved from last year.  There were several ends where we stole one point, but if it weren't for his shots, we probably could have scored more than one.

In this end, the opposing team has hammer, my team is yellow, and I believe we were up by two.  It's the opposing skip's first shot.  I was thinking the easiest shot would be to take out the rock in the top of the house and try to get a double.  With the curl on the right side, it may have been possible to draw on that side; shot rock was probably unlikely, but saving two was possible.  The opposing skip went for the hit and roll with the rock on the left side.  He almost got the roll, but was still able to get second shot rock. 

I don't remember what I did on my shot.  But the opposing skip has a few options.  One option is raise on the left side, but you need some curl on the shot to get around the guard.  Another possibility is to go down the middle.  While that shot would have been interesting (who doesn't want to see lots of rocks crashing into each other?), it's possible that their own rock would have been taken out and that would be much worse; at best they would only be scoring one.  I guess it might have been possible to go for a double raise or something like that off the guard, but that's still just as dangerous.  He went for the draw and missed.  To me though, getting the hit and roll on his first shot was still a very good outcome.

Game 1 Recap

First, an update on the A More Competitive League post.  I guess not enough teams opted in on the competitive league (or maybe it was logistically difficult to do that grouping).  Looking at the schedule, I count 7 teams from the competitive team list.  There are 10 teams in the other league, including the very accomplished curler.  So fairly even.

Lead couldn't make the game.  (Curling season came up on us a little early.)  Here's a tip.  Don't schedule a sub who's running the Twin Cities Marathon that morning.  Needless to say, we ended up playing with just three people. 

On a side note, my team has a game scheduled on 11/27, which is the Sunday after Thanksgiving.  Let me know if you want to sub with my team that night.

Back to the game.  Our first game was against a team on the competitive team list and there was no handicap.  (I assume that the teams all get the same handicap from the end of last year, so I'm guessing we're both B level.)  Vice and I got out on the ice about 15 minutes before the game and we could both tell that we were a little rusty.  Perhaps not surprisingly, to sum up, my team really had trouble with weight the whole game.  Mainly we were throwing light, which was kinda tough on Second who had to sweep a rock all the way most of the night.  The opposing team stole a point the first three ends (my team had trouble with takeouts those first three ends).  We were able to score two in the fourth end (I somehow got a double takeout.)

So now in the fourth end, they have hammer and my team just had nothing on this end.  I'm looking at something like this for my second shot.  (My team is yellow.)

As I saw it, I could try to draw on the left side to try to save two points or go for the raise on the right and possibly get a steal.  My feeling was that I could miss the draw completely and crash into the guard, not to mention I hadn't figured out my draw weight yet.  So I went for the raise but missed the angle on that.  The other team was able to draw on the left side and scored 4. 

We played two more ends after that and my team did score one point for both ends, but it wasn't enough and I called it after the seventh.  In retrospect, we were playing a good team and since my team struggled with our shots, the game could've been a lot worse.  But next week, we'll get Lead back and we'll have the whole gang back together.

Looking for a Bonspiel

As I've said earlier, I aged out of the Novice 5 and Under Bonspiel this past season so I'm on the lookout for a new bonspiel that I can convince my teammates to do.  Let's look at a couple that I found.

Sin Sity Spiel - This one is about 6 weeks from now and if you can't guess from the name, it takes place in Las Vegas.  This one might be a good fit for my team as both Vice and Second are engaged (not to each other, not that there's anything wrong with that.)  What could be better for a bachelor weekend?  Curling, gambling, even Olympian Chris Plys will be there.  It's kind of expensive though at $400 per team.  The schedule is kind of insane too since the curling will be nonstop for all 48 hours of the bonspiel.  (There may also be some fun conversations wtih significant others when we say, "Honey, why don't you take care of the baby all weekend?  I'll be hanging out in Vegas.  Have fun!")

Beers of the World Bonspiel - This bonspiel features beer tasting along with all of the normal bonspiel type stuff.  When I told my wife about this, she said, "Don't you already get enough beer at a regular bonspiel?"  That's true, but regardless, it sounds kind of fun though.  On a related note, Lead thinks there should be something like a "Vice-Spiel" where basically all kinds of vices are celebrated.  So during this hypothetical bonspiel, there'd be cigar smoking, gambling, all sorts of drinking, etc.  Obviously, some (all?) of this stuff happens anyway, but more as a side to the bonspiel.  Anyway, the Beers of the World Bonspiel will be taking place in Columbus, OH on December 2.  Kind of a drive for us. 

Triathlon - I haven't seen anything on this yet for this year, but I've been told that it's really fun.  The triathlon in this case is composed of curling, bowling, and darts.  This takes place in Fargo, ND and the obvious joke is, "What else is there to do there?"  It'd be nice if the three sports are within walking distance of each other (I have no idea if they are).  I'm guessing it'd be dangerous otherwise or they'd need shuttles or something.

Anyone else know of any interesting bonspiels?

A More Competitive League

I recently got an e-mail proposing that my curling league may cherry pick teams from the Sunday night leagues to form a more competitive league.  Surprisingly, my team was on the list of teams that would make up this new league.  (I guess it's not completely implausible; we ended last year as a B level team with a pretty good 10-7 record.)  However, I look at the list of other teams and see several teams that dealt us our 7 losses.  Also, not naming names here, but one of the other skips on the list is a VERY accomplished curler.  We have a choice on the matter so, as Lead put it: "So our choices are to play against teams that will mostly destroy us, or to be grouped with teams that our past record would indicate we are slightly to much better than... On the one hand we will finish early and get free beer, on the other hand we will finish early to on time and have to buy beer."

I'm leaning towards voting for the "realignment" though I'm a little worried that if we truly are outmatched, it may not be as fun to play.  I used to play foosball with a friend of mine nearly every day for a few months (there was a table at work), but he had also played damn near every day during college and after a while, the losing got to me.  Maybe I could've practiced to get better or something, but it's just foosball, and it wasn't getting to not be fun.  (I've played foosball just a handful of times since.)  I'd hate for this to happen with curling. 

But right now, I kinda want to see if my team can hang with these other teams.  Several of my team's losses came down to the last end and maybe things might break differently.  What do you think?  Would you choose to be in the more competitive league?

Curling Book Review - Curl to Win

I'm at home today to stay with the little guy, who's running a fever.  But he's asleep right now, so maybe I can write a quick post during his nap.

I don't feel like writing about a curling patent right now, but I thought I'd write about my favorite curling book: Russ Howard's Curl to Win.  There are seven chapters which can be summed up as: General, Delivery, Sweeping, Game Plan, Strategy, Team Building, and Mental Toughness, but the reason that I like this book so much is the chapter on strategy. 

On a side note, I happen to play a little bit of poker (not very well) and my favorite poker books are the Harrington on Hold 'em series by Dan Harrington.  Basically, the books are comprised of a number of poker scenarios and the author walks you through the thought process and goes through the advantages and disadvantages that a player could make in all of these scenarios. 

Back to curling, Curl to Win has twenty scenarios covered in the strategy chapter.  Howard doesn't go over all of the possible choices (as I have in several of my strategy posts), but he gives a good comparison on how most curlers may play the shot and what is likely to be the better strategy.  I have yet to see a better set of strategy discussion in any other curling book, though Colleen Jones' Curling Secrets has a pretty good strategy discussion as well.

I also think the section on delivery would help curlers of all levels.  It's always good to go over fundamentals and there's a good summary of differents practice drills to help on your accuracy.  Maybe Vice and I will go through some of the drills when curling starts up again. 

Anyway, since most of us have no curling for summer, I'd suggest giving this book a read in preparation for the winter. 

(Just finished writing this post and he's still asleep.)

Brier Ball and a Related Curling Patent

Recently, I found this patent, which describes a game combining golf and curling and I think it looks really fun.  Pretty simple concept.  Instead of curling rocks, you use golf balls and you putt them into the house.  This patent details a particular shape which includes other inclines (possibly to differentiate from prior art already being sold). 

Surprisingly, the only golf/curling game I can find online is Brier Ball.  I like the Brier Ball setup better than the one described in the above patent because it has a house on both ends, just like in regular curling, which I think would be more convenient.  However, this thing costs $995.  How many people have actually bought one of these things at that price?

How come no one has anything like this, but a lot cheaper?  I think a game like this would be really cool to have at a summertime bonspiel where you'd set it up outside the curling club and have golf/curling games go on while other teams are playing.  Or maybe I could just set one up on my lawn during a party.

I doubt you could patent the cheap version (due to the existing prior art, unless you got really specific in the patent.)  However, no cheap golf/curling game exists currently (or isn't marketed at all) and I feel like someone could make a decent side business out of this.

Update/Non Curling Post

Sorry for not updating recently (almost a month), but you know, the little curler does take up some time.  In case you're wondering, everything with the little guy is going well and he's, of course, very cute.

My other excuse for not posting this past month is that I started a new job.  (Woohoo!  More money!  More interesting work!)  Let's just say that my old job occasionally had some down time (and a decent amount of privacy) where writing my posts was a lot easier.  Don't worry though.  The little guy's going to sleep more and by the time curling season starts again, I think we can expect regular posts again. 

Until then, I have a list of interesting curling patents I intend to tackle over the coming months.