CE Masculino 2024 event analysis

Round Robin

Key Games

vs Jaca

• Demonstrated our inability to generate offense with hammer, even against a "weaker" team.
• Demonstrated why deploying an aggressive strategy against an imprecise team is a bad strategy
• Did not take advantage of opponents inaccuracy. Placing rocks in play and generating a game down the center allowed opponent to miss completely and result in a favourable outcome for opponent.

vs Barcelona & vs Pireneos

• Demonstrated simple games against opponents that miss is reliable and effective.
• Demonstrated low risk strategy of keeping the center open and waiting for misses.
• Demonstrated opponent lack of execution and therefore inability to implement a strategy.
• Demonstrated opponent lack of knowledge how to generate offence.

Strategy Analysis & Summary

With an 8-1 round-robin record and 4 straight wins in the playoffs we won the CE Espana 2024. This was the clear goal and as a team are content to have achieved it.

The success is not without key lessons now that we have measured our throwing quality against the best teams in Spain. Across the board our team is throwing upwards of 1 full point better than the competition.

Example if our average hitting score is 3/4, the best opponents are throwing 2/4. In other words they will hit and stay 1 of every 2 throws, while ours will hit and stay 1.5 of 2. This is significant because it means we can patiently wait for our rocks to build up in the house.

The above observation leads to some general conclusions with respect to strategy when playing a team with such a difference in execution ability.

• The most aggressive form of play is the play highly defensive and patiently wait for their misses.
• Allowing ends to build up, especially around the centre line, is an advantage to the imprecise opponent.
  • Clear misses can result in lucky ricochets, wicks, and rolls that favor the imprecise team - the so called "lucky" shot.
  • This is not luck on the opponents side. This is OUR mistake to allow the situation to develop.

Conclusions for playing weaker teams

• Play a highly defensive game against opponents throwing < 60%.
  • Patient for misses, do not generate an end trying to force misses (as you would against better opponents)
• There is no team in Spain who can throw >60% on a consistent basis.
  • Sometimes they WILL throw > 60%. A so called > 1 standard deviation event.
  • When this happens stay calm and trust they will return to their average. Stick to plan.
  • In > 1 standard deviation events leverage game and score-bord management. We know how to play ties end games better than they do.
  • Do not force the game into an aggressive style.

Final

Game plan:

• play straight forward, wait for opponent to miss
• keep ends open down center removing opportunity for opponent to generate an end

Game 1 Result: win Summary:

• Early lead in first end that was maintained throughout.
• Opponent played > 1 standard deviation of their averages in previous games and this resulted in a closer game.

Key ends

1. First end. Seconds second rock we called to center setting up a triple and play to the centre.
2. Ninth end. We call a through the port peel when opp sits 1 in front of multiple hero stones. Deviate from game plan of opening center.

Analysis

• We did a good job of setting up the ends with lead stones following the game plan.
• Strategic decisions on second and vice rocks did not always follow the game plan. (See key ends)
• In the 9th end we called a highly aggressive cluttered end giving the opponent a chance to steal and not following the game plan (despite being +1 with hammer)
• Lead, second, third all relaxed during game. Skip was stressed and doubted of the game plan.
• Between end team meetings early game were relaxed and focused on game plan. Late game with score close between end meetings were stressful. Meetings consisted of skip speaking constantly with little to zero input from lead, second, third. This is a sign of skip's stress.

Game 2 Result: win

Summary:

• Opponent played true to their statistical mean. This gave us a massive edge on made shots and allowed big scoring opportunities to arise simply.
• Big ends came about from misses from the opponents second and third. The result left opponent skip with little option to prevent a 2+ score.

Analysis

• We did a good job of setting up the ends with lead stones following the game plan.
• Opponent missed many shots especially early on. Opponent played closer to their expected averages in previous game.
• Skip relaxed playing with multi-point lead with little pressure from opposing team.