Question about curling?

Question

I don't understand how the hammer works in curling. I thought the last shot was alternated between the two teams, but today i watched usa vs germany and it was the 9th end, 5-4 germany. usa had last shot with germany lying one. usa could've easily tied it 5-5 but they knocked both rocks out and "protected" the hammer, according to the announcer. Could someone explain this to me?

Answer 1

well here's how it works. the team who gets the hammer is the team who didnt get point in the previous end. (so say germany got 2 points in the 4th end, in the 5th, usa would get the hammer).

when they knock both rocks out, it's called "blanking" the end. they do this, because they want to come home with the hammer in the 10th end. the reason they would get the hammer in the tenth, is because since no one got points in the 9th, whoever last had it keeps it (in this case the us)

they would want the hammer in the 10th, because then they could try for 2 in the 10th. if they just got their one in the 9th, then germany would just have to get one in the tenth, and then they will have lost. they probably wanted to try and win it in the 10th, with the hammer, so they wouldn't have to steal.

i hope this clears a little bit up for you :)

Answer 2

Like A IR says; you lose the hammer if you score, so it makes no sense (at least at that level of curling) to score a single point but give up the hammer. If the US went into the 10th end tied but without the hammer, they most likely would have lost 6-5. So the US rink deliberately not scored in 9th-"blanked" the end. As it was the US had no luck in the 10th end, but going into the 10th they were most likely looking at forcing a 11th end at best.

So good curling strategy is score 2+ points when you have the hammer(or try not to score!), or else "steal"-score any points when you don't have the hammer.