Pebble Water 21.0

In this episode of "A Pane In The Glass Podcast" I deal with four topics. In order they are practical strategy, measuring rocks, the case of the reversing ice and the most difficult shot in curling. You can go to the four topics directly by clicking on Chapters (above these show notes). By clicking onTranscript you will see a copy of the text of the episode. If you know someone who is unable to hear the episode and might like to see the transcript, please forward this episode to them! Enjoy!

Correction - In the section on "Measuring" I inadvertently said "push the rock" when I should have said "push the measure"! There, now I feel better! 

Chapters

• 3:07 Practical Strategy
• 12:00 Measuring Rocks
• 23:40 The Case of the Reversing Ice
• 26:55 The Most Difficult Shot In Curling

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:16

It's pebble water time, in this case, pebble water twenty-one point zero. For those that are not familiar with pebble water, every once in a while I take an episode to talk about a number of not exactly smaller items, but there is no central theme here. Now that might surprise some of you coming off the Olympics. Well, fear not, there is going to be an Olympic episode, in fact, probably more than one, but that's still in the works. This is Bill Shearhart, Chartered Professional Coach with Coaches of Canada, welcoming you to a pain in the glass podcast. So, what are those topics today? Well, in order, they are practical strategy. We're getting to that time in the curling season in the northern hemisphere, sorry, my friends in the southern hemisphere, where the games perhaps take on a little bit more significance as you approach playoff time. And so I've got some practical strategy that I would like to share with you. Then I'm going to talk about measuring rocks. We saw rocks being measured in Cortina. And of course, now as playdowns are approaching in your facility, when you measure rocks, you want to make sure you do it right. So we got a little bit of a primer, measuring rocks 101, so to speak. Then I'm going to talk about an interesting phenomenon that we all experience from time to time, but nobody really ever talks about it. And I call it the case of the reversing ice. So hopefully you'll want to hear what I have to say about the reversing ice. And then I conclude the episode with a promise fulfilled as I talk about this as I come to that last section of the episode. There was something on Facebook about attempting the most difficult shot. And if you sort of miss that reference, well, I'll tell you that it was a question on Facebook, and it wanted curlers to think about the most difficult shot they attempted. Well, it's the most difficult shot, and I don't think anybody would want to attempt it, so I'll give you a chance to think about what I might say that the most difficult shot in curling might be when we get to that section of the episode. So sit back, enjoy Pebble Water 21.0. I'm going to call this next section of Pebble Water practical strategy going into the playoff portion of your season. With games meaningful, wins and losses important, possible championships on the line. So you might call this a strategy 101. And we're going to have a look at two aspects of strategy, as I said, from a very practical perspective. First of all, game plan. Game plans are really very simple, but just because they're simple, that does not mean they're unimportant. Now the simple part is really critical in my opinion, because so often if you talk to teams about a game plan, and we'll assume 10 ends for this discussion. Well, in the first uh three ends, let's say we do A, B, and C, and then in the middle ends, you know, four, five, six, seven, we do JKL, and then in eight, nine, ten, we do XYZ. Well, that's very nice, but that's not a game plan. That's hopes and aspirations. Hopes and aspirations are good and they can be very effective, but they're not a plan. So I'll cut right to the chase here. When you get together with your team, it's like a three to five minute discussion. Do we start the game? And the key word here is start. Do we start the game promoting a scoring opportunity? And everything that goes with that, okay, the tactics. Well, we're not going to get into discussion of tactics today. Are we going to start the game pursuing a scoring opportunity right out of the gate? Or are we going to start the game, again, that very important word, start. Are we going to start the game protecting against a scoring threat? Or are we going to be very careful where we position rocks and just kind of a wait and see what transpires? If there is a scoring opportunity, we'll take advantage of that and really work hard to secure that scoring opportunity. On the other hand, if there is a real scoring threat, well, we'll have to deal with it. So in a nutshell, that's what a game plan is all about. As I said, it's a rather short discussion. Now, what are the factors that would drive you to promote a scoring opportunity right out of the gate, or to defend against a scoring threat, or to take a cautionary approach and see what evolves? Well, uh, how well your team is playing, the perceived strengths and weaknesses of your opponent, possibly the ice, uh, could be a fatigue factor. Well, there's a number of intangibles, and uh they can play a very important role in all of this. So that's a game plan. Now, an end plan is similar in that it's a way to start an end. And again, just like game plan, the word start is very important. So, again, like the game plan, are we gonna start this end promoting a scoring opportunity? On the other hand, are we gonna start the end protecting against a possible scoring threat? Or are we just simply gonna play very carefully the way we position rocks, see how the leads rocks uh transpire, or perhaps the first of the seconds rocks, and see what happens. And is there uh a scoring opportunity here? Well, the rest of the way, at least for the foreseeable future in that end, yeah, we'll do everything we can to take advantage of that, to not just promote the scoring opportunity, but to make it happen. On the other hand, if there is a realistic uh threat out there, well, we're gonna have to change our tactics possibly. Certainly the plan is going to change and we're going to deal with it. Or we still might be in that cautionary mode. But sooner or later, in an end, one of those two scenarios is going to occur. You're either going to see a potential scoring opportunity or there is a real scoring threat. Now, here's where the practicality comes in. Because just as I said, your team will get together at the start of the game to talk about the game plan. Well, I would hope that you would also get together for a very brief discussion about how we're going to play the end. Because you see, the game plan is a more or less a general plan. It's a general plan to start the end, but of course, an end plan is more specific because you've got eight rocks and your opponent has eight rocks. Now, here's a way to think about whether you should go with a scoring opportunity or protect against a scoring threat with three questions. What do we want from the end? We get our way and we play well. What do we want from the end? If it looks at some point in the end, we're not going to get what we want, then what's acceptable? You know where the third question is going to come here. If we aren't going to get what we want, and it's unlikely we're going to even get what's acceptable, then what is unacceptable? And I think when a team gets together between the ends and deals with those three questions, you should be able to do it rather quickly. What do we want from the end if we get our way? What's acceptable? And what's unacceptable. Now, we're going to use a real-life example that I think many of you who are listening to this episode today probably saw unfold in the Olympic men's gold medal game between Great Britain, the uh the Bruce Moat team, and of course uh Team Canada, the Brad Jacobs team. Going into the ninth end, Team Moat, Great Britain, was up one, but without last rock. And so let's go with those three um uh questions about what do they want, what's acceptable, what's unacceptable. Well, the want I think would have realistically been you know, if we can steal the end, that would be great because our win probability would put us in a very good position, you probably would have definite control. But uh realistically, if if they gave up one uh to tie the game and then came home with last rocket vantage in the tenth end, their win probability would have been 88.8 percent. So giving up one is really realistically what they probably wanted. Now, giving up two, well, that's at least acceptable, even though it dropped their win probability to around 40%. Now, it would it with the chart that I'm using, I was rather surprised that giving up two would drop the win probability quite that low, but that's what the chart said. But here's the important part. According to the win probability chart that I used to make these statements, if they gave up three, the win probability was 10%. Well, we know what happened. Uh Great Britain gave up three and went from if they had given up one, and of course, if they had stolen one, they were in but they were into the 90% range, but by giving up one, there would have been 88.8% to be precise, and even in giving up two, they would have been below water, they would have been below the 50% line. But giving up three was would have been a disaster, which of course it it was. So there's perhaps a little bit of help for you, especially the get together between the ends. What do we want? What's acceptable, and what's not acceptable. It's a very quick discussion. Let's talk about uh an important housekeeping item, rather important because it directly affects the score of an end and ultimately the score of the game. And I'm talking about measuring rocks. Now, before we get into the whole you know, measuring rocks 101 protocol, I want to talk to the or want to talk about the leads in the seconds. When the last rock has been played, leads in seconds, please don't start removing rocks. Wait. Wait for what? Wait until you hear the thirds, the mates, the vice skips, whatever term you use, wherever you are. Wait until you actually hear them decide on the score of the end. So there's a caution for leads in seconds. Now, the important people here, of course, are those thirds, because their agreement makes the score official. Now, I'm gonna talk to you from the standpoint of a recreational environment. Now, you saw on television at the Olympics curling that officials were involved, but of course they're not going to be involved at your curling facility. So you have to look the other third in the eye and make sure that you say the color. Too red, too yellow, whatever it happens to be. And remember, leads in seconds, make sure you hear that agreement. But should two rocks be close enough that by visual inspection it's not evident to either of the thirds whether one is shot over the other. Well, now we're talking about a measurement. Now here's the first don't. I I try not to use uh negative language when I'm uh providing some education, but I can't avoid it here. Please, please, please, do not put a brush down on the ice. I don't see that happening as much now as I did in years past, but so often somebody very well intentioned will put the brush down, perhaps to indicate that there's going to be a measurement or to protect the rocks. Well, the person who does that is doing exactly the opposite. Because when you put that brush down, there's two things that can happen, and they are both a negative. First of all, others who are involved in the measurement, and it could be anybody or a leader a second who's now moving rocks around. If someone was to bump that brush onto a rock that's to be measured, now unlikely that it would have moved a rock, but who knows? So there's the first negative thing. But the second one is even more important because it is a health and safety issue. An unsuspecting person, perhaps even backing up, if you step on the handle of a brush that's on the ice, I can just about guarantee the next thing you're going to see is the ceiling of your curling facility, and you will be flat on the on the ice, you will have likely fallen backwards, and I don't even want to continue with the possible ramifications of that. Hopefully, you would have a helmet on, but probably not. It is extremely dangerous. So please, please, please, if you're involved in the measurement of a rock and somebody puts their brush in the ice, lift it off the ice, hand it back to the person, and say, thank you very much, but it's not a good idea to do that, or however you want to handle it. Rather than placing a brush on the ice to indicate that a measurement is about to take place, one third can stand in the house guarding the rocks, while the other third goes for the measure. So once that's out of the way, now we come to the measurement itself. Now it's important from the standpoint of the score of the end to make sure what it is you're measuring. And you saw that on television when an official was called onto the ice to measure. The first thing the official said is, What am I measuring for? How many points have already been scored? That was important for the official to know because the actual score of the end is to be recorded by the official. And in some cases, what we're measuring for third shot, yellow has already scored one or two or whatever it happens to be. So, with that out of the way, now we come to the actual measure. So those measures, which are hanging on the wall or in some conspicuous location in your curling facility, you put the pointy end into the metal part of the pin and make sure it's secured there. And then you position yourself if you're the third who's actually doing the measure. And let's say there's just two rocks and they're not too far apart. You put the measurement between yourself and the first rock to be measured. That's very important. So let me repeat that. Once the measure has been secured in the pin, you put the measure between yourself, the one that's doing the measuring, and the first rock to be measured. And then you position the actual device that's going to do the measure. You loosen the knob. Usually there's a knob, you push the measure stick forward. And as it approaches the rock, you move it and then secure it so that is as it moves past the striking band of the rock, it's going to measure on the dial. And you always push the measure forward. You never put any weight down on the measure. You push it forward so that the other third can see the dial, and you come to an agreement. Well, it's uh two two marks past the four, whatever it happens to be. Then you continue pushing the measure until you come to the second rock, and well, hopefully that will tell you that either it's red or yellow, or whatever the color of the rocks happen to be. If it's really close and you want to measure again, now here's a very important point. Even though those two rocks are close together, you don't ever back up. Now, the protocol for officials is usually that you move in a clockwise direction. So you go all the way around. I know it seems, you know, why don't I just you know go back the other way? Not a good idea. Bump into rocks, you always move forward, you go around the house again and repeat. Hopefully, you will be able to determine whether it's red or yellow. Now, here's an interesting point. Let's say there are three rocks that are close enough to the pin that you're not sure uh whether let's say it's one red and two yellow. So the score could be one red, or it could be one yellow, or it could be two yellow. So here's what you have to remember: you always measure the odd rock first, and that could be the one in the middle. There could be yellow, red, yellow. Well, you bring the measure up to the red rock and you measure. You continue to the other yellow, and that's going to be either closer or further away. Then you go all the way around back to the second yellow rock, and and you you simply compare the measure of the odd rock to the other two. Now, there's a little quirk in the measurement of rocks in our game, and it's an anomaly. I'll just use the word anomaly. And let's say that uh you're not measuring for shot, you're measuring for second shot. So let's say, for the sake of uh our discussion here, that it's red that's already scored one. So you're measuring for second shot, and you you move the the one rock that's already scored, the red rock that gets one, you moved it out of the way, now you're measuring for second shot, and you measure, and it really does you feel that it is so close, it is a tie. Now you might involve others into the measurement just to be sure that it's a tie. But again, if you measure the two rocks and you want to re-measure, you go all the way around the house, again, pushing the rock in front of you, suggested in a clockwise direction. And if they're tied, well, if you were measuring for shot rock, it would be a blank end. But here's what makes an anomaly, because red has already scored one. So if I'm the yellow team, I am quite happy with the tie, because of course those two rocks kind of cancel themselves out. Well, if you stop and think about it, if yellow, if red then only scores one, well, yellow might as well have been closer. Because if yellow had been closer on that measure, then red would only have had one. And so in a way, when you're measuring for subsequent points, you could make the case of there really is no such thing as a tie. Now, I'm splitting hairs here. I know I there's probably some listeners kind of rolling their eyes, like, ah, Sheerhart, they're tied. What can you do? Well, here's something to think about. I think there is a way out of this, so that in this case, if the two rocks were were tied, that it's the same as yellow being closer, you could say to the red team, okay, red team, it's it's you just get one, or we consider it a blank end. Hmm, I don't know what what would happen if that was the rule, but I've thought about it many times and it would be interesting. And what would you do if you were the red team? You were only going to get one because the the the two rocks were the measure was tied, and you understood, well, the yellow might as well have been closer because we're only going to get one. Yeah, I think we'll consider it a blank end and we'll take last rock into the next end. There, I'll throw it out there, and at the end of the show notes on that hyperlink, if you want to weigh in on my idea, well, well, let's hear. So there's a little bit of measuring of rocks 101. I'm calling this next section the case of the reversing ice. And we're considering ice in a curling facility, not the championship ice that you see on television. Well, if the ice has been prepared for your game and it has been uh perhaps scraped and pebbled, or at least pebbled, we'll say for the sake of this discussion, that the speed of the ice is pretty uniform from sideboard to sideboard. As the game progresses, when so many of the shots are played in the four foot stripe, even though we don't actually have four foot stripes anymore. We did at one time. I kind of like that, to be quite honest. But the four foot stripe is exactly what the term implies. It's two feet on either side of the center line. Well, the pebble starts to you know break down, and the ice gets a little bit faster in that four foot stripe. So as you proceed through ends, and we'll say even you know an eight-end game, so it's a a club game in a recreational environment. By the time you get to the fourth end and to the fifth end, the ice is definitely faster in the four foot stripe than it is outside the four foot stripe where the pebble is still up, even though there probably have been some shots played out there. And then as you get towards the end of the game, things tend to change because that four foot stripe, which in the earlier part of the game was quicker than the outside, now that pebble may, and I'm choosing words very carefully here, that pebble may have flattened out. You may not realize that the uh times are slowing down. Another promotion for uh timing, because the the times will change. Well, what's happened is the ice in terms of speed has actually reversed. Now it's quicker outside the four-foot stripe where the pebble is still up. And of course, when it was up early in the game, that was where the shots were a little bit slower. The speed for shots was a little bit slower, but now it has reversed. And I have seen so many draws that had to be played outside the four-foot stripe into the mid-eight foot edge of the eight-foot, into the 12-foot. I've seen those slide through the house, and of course, well, what happened? Well, it's because now the outside is actually faster than the four foot stripe. So when you're playing your games at your club, pay attention to the what I call the traffic on the ice. When it starts out, the four-foot stripe is quicker than the outside. But later in the game, when the ice has reversed, as I said, the outside can be faster than the four-foot stripe. The case of the reversing ice. Two episodes ago, I referred to something that I saw on Facebook. And of course, as if it's on Facebook, it must be true. Well, it wasn't a statement, it was a question. And it said, What's the most difficult shot you've ever attempted? And I made the comment, as I said, a couple of episodes ago, that I would describe the most difficult shot in curling. In fact, it is so difficult no one in his right mind would even attempt it. And it does not involve rocks coming into contact with one another. It's really very simple shot to be played. It's a draw. So how can a wide open draw be the most difficult shot in curling, Bill? Well, it would be the most difficult shot in curling if you drew purposefully to tie the measure. Some of you are thinking, oh, well, Surehardt, you've lost it now. Who in their right mind would do that? Well, that's the point of all this. That's the most difficult shot in curling. And well, when would you even attempt that? You know, if the if the question on Facebook was what's the most difficult shot you would attempt? Well, I can give you a scenario where you very likely might attempt the most difficult shot in curling, and here's the possible situation. Let's say it's the penultimate end, the score is tied, and you have last rock, and your end plan for the tenth end is to come home with last rock, because your win probability, which is what we talked about earlier in the episode, would would put you uh above water, above 50%. You have a uh deaf you'd have definite control of the game. Well, but here's the situation there are only two rocks in play, they're at opposite ends of the T line, and they both belong to your opponent. So you've got plenty of room to draw, to go up one, playing the last end, but your competitive data, your win probability has told you historically that if you go home one up without last rock, you you're below you're below water. You're you're below the 50% win probability line. You want to blank the end. That's what you wanted. Remember, well, you know what you want, what's acceptable, what's not acceptable. And again, these rocks are on opposite ends of the T line. How on earth am I going to blank the end? Well, you already know the answer. You decide which of those two rocks is shot, you draw to tie the measure, which blanks the end, and you go home with what you wanted all along. You have last rock in the last end of the game. It is the most difficult shot in curling. I've seen it happen by accident, but it definitely was not attempted. Well, honest now, how did you do? Did you know what the most difficult shot in curling is? Well, people that have heard me talk in the past, either on the podcast or live and in person and live to tell about it, know the answer to that because it's one of my favorite trivia questions. So thank you very much for listening to a pain in the glass podcast today. Wherever you are, please stay safe, my friends. And remember those wise words of that great North American philosopher Charlie Brown. Don't focus too much on things that make you sad because there are so many things that can make you happy. Until next time.