Registered: Mar 2011
Location: Montr�al
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The free guard zone was invented to counter the ability of teams to peel their opponents to death. We had the 3 rock rule, then the 4 rock rule and now the 5 rock rule in the SLAMS. It worked for a while but players are getting better and better at the tic shot. We will soon be back to square one with nowhere to hide for teams trying to steal a point. There is a solution: THE 2 GUARD RULE. Both leads have to place their first rock as a guard on the four foot. Simple and effective.
What do you think?

Last edited by Marco2010 on 02-08-16 at 05:13PM

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If I heard correctly yesterday (during either the Harris-Howard or Epping-Howard game, I can't recall which), it was stated that there is talk of a slightly modified FGZ rule wherein an opponent would not be able to touch or move a rock that is on or in contact with the centerline.

If this is true it would take away the tic shot when it comes to a CL guard, provided that said guard is placed well. Obviously if it's a bit off it's fair game for the tic.

Interesting concept.

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If they reinstated the old sweeping rules, the tick shot would no longer be almost-automatic, and they wouldn't need to add any new rules to protect stones on the centre line ...

but God forbid anyone should ever use common sense and admit that those rules were put in place for a good reason, or that they were repealed by mistake!

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quote:

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Originally posted by Marco2010
The free guard zone was invented to counter the ability of teams to peel their opponents to death. We had the 3 rock rule, then the 4 rock rule and now the 5 rock rule in the SLAMS. It worked for a while but players are getting better and better at the tic shot. We will soon be back to square one with nowhere to hide for teams trying to steal a point. There is a solution: THE 2 GUARD RULE. Both leads have to place their first rock as a guard on the four foot. Simple and effective.
What do you think?

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quote:

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Originally posted by RockDoc


A steal percentage ... with well-played ticks it's close to zero at the top level.

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Nah. Let those who want to 'Wegal' , tick all day.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Par
If they reinstated the old sweeping rules, the tick shot would no longer be almost-automatic, and they wouldn't need to add any new rules to protect stones on the centre line ...

but God forbid anyone should ever use common sense and admit that those rules were put in place for a good reason, or that they were repealed by mistake!

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quote:

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Originally posted by Marco2010
The free guard zone was invented to counter the ability of teams to peel their opponents to death. We had the 3 rock rule, then the 4 rock rule and now the 5 rock rule in the SLAMS. It worked for a while but players are getting better and better at the tic shot. We will soon be back to square one with nowhere to hide for teams trying to steal a point. There is a solution: THE 2 GUARD RULE. Both leads have to place their first rock as a guard on the four foot. Simple and effective.
What do you think?

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quote:

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Originally posted by RockDoc


How about a simpler rule that says you simply cannot touch or move an opponent's guard in the FGZ until the first four rocks have been played? Then both the hammer and non-hammer team can establish guards as required. That removes the tick shot from play entirely, and increases the precision required to play the come-around game, lest you crash on the center guard.

Well played tick shots are simply devastating to the non-hammer team that is behind, giving them almost no chance at all if tied or down one in the last end. A steal percentage of 20% is bad enough, but with well-played ticks it's close to zero at the top level.

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To me, modify the rule like this. Draw what I believe to be are called courtesy lines on the ice. The ones that run lengthwise, parallel to the center line, 4 foot circle extended. If you have a rock inside those lines, you can hit it, but not move it out of the center line zone. If you have a rock outside of the lines, you can hit it, but not out of play, and not into the center line zone. And a guard cannot be hit into the house

Effectively, you can slightly move the rock to a less desirable position, but not completely eliminate it. I have 2 reasons for this. One, it eliminates people trying to come behind a guard who accidentally tick the guard (a bigger deal at club level than pro, but still a thing). Two, if makes a successful tick possible, but really really difficult. You are making the tick more like the nudge.

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Or one more alternative, if during the 4 rock period (or 5 rock I guess) if you throw a rock that hits a rock in the FGZ, if either the guard OR THE SHOOTER goes out of play, then the guard gets replaced while the shooter gets removed.

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This may indeed need updating but when brooms are able to back up a rock 2-3 inches you don't even have to that good to make the shots. Ban the brooms and part of this problem goes away.

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quote:

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Originally posted by peteski


Which old sweeping rules are you referring to?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Par


In ancient times there were very strict rules about sweeping, and the "directional sweeping" techniques that are now used to steer rocks were considered cheating.

It used to be that a brush stroke had to be perpendicular to the path of the stone, and had to cover the entire running surface of the stone, and so on... The tick shot was a lot tougher, and so were all the other soft-weight angle-taps: split-raises and so on.

If these shots were still very difficult, we wouldn't be talking about making rules against them. And these rule changes always penalize the stronger teams. It doesn't make any difference to the weaker teams because they can't make the same shots with the same consistency.

It's an old story. Whenever conditions improve and shot-making gets easier, it becomes easier to protect a lead, and then we have to make more rules -- and that's how we got the FGZ, and that's how we got the 4 rock rule, and so on ... always more changes to favor the weaker teams ... because otherwise the games get boring. Supposedly.

Personally I don't see the problem. If you're ahead and you have the hammer in 10 and you make a couple of ticks, you deserve to be in control of the game.

If I wanted to see every game hanging in the balance until the last rock, I would watch the effin skins game.

But my main point is: you wouldn't have to ban any equipment to solve this problem. Just make 'em sweep the whole running surface, perpendicular to the path of the rock, and finesse shots will once again require some finesse.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Par


In ancient times there were very strict rules about sweeping, and the "directional sweeping" techniques that are now used to steer rocks were considered cheating.

It used to be that a brush stroke had to be perpendicular to the path of the stone, and had to cover the entire running surface of the stone, and so on... The tick shot was a lot tougher, and so were all the other soft-weight angle-taps: split-raises and so on.

If these shots were still very difficult, we wouldn't be talking about making rules against them. And these rule changes always penalize the stronger teams. It doesn't make any difference to the weaker teams because they can't make the same shots with the same consistency.

It's an old story. Whenever conditions improve and shot-making gets easier, it becomes easier to protect a lead, and then we have to make more rules -- and that's how we got the FGZ, and that's how we got the 4 rock rule, and so on ... always more changes to favor the weaker teams ... because otherwise the games get boring. Supposedly.

Personally I don't see the problem. If you're ahead and you have the hammer in 10 and you make a couple of ticks, you deserve to be in control of the game.

If I wanted to see every game hanging in the balance until the last rock, I would watch the effin skins game.

But my main point is: you wouldn't have to ban any equipment to solve this problem. Just make 'em sweep the whole running surface, perpendicular to the path of the rock, and finesse shots will once again require some finesse.

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quote:

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Originally posted by peteski
Don't the rules about perpendicular to the path and covering the running surface still exist?

The problem with sweeping technique rules, in my opinion, are that they are very difficult to enforce. Who makes the call on who is sweeping improperly? How do we know if someone is covering the entire running surface, for certain? Will we have to go to instant replay? What if you're sweeping at a 20 degree angle instead of perpendicular? I mean, is that cheating?

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quote:

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Originally posted by fresca
so if you cant tic - you are creating a situation where being one up after 9 you might as well shake hands because most times last rock will give 2 or 3 ..

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quote:

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Originally posted by peteski
... you would agree that the free guard zone has been a good thing for the game, would you not?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Marco2010
The free guard zone was invented to counter the ability of teams to peel their opponents to death. We had the 3 rock rule, then the 4 rock rule and now the 5 rock rule in the SLAMS. It worked for a while but players are getting better and better at the tic shot. We will soon be back to square one with nowhere to hide for teams trying to steal a point. There is a solution: THE 2 GUARD RULE. Both leads have to place their first rock as a guard on the four foot. Simple and effective.
What do you think?

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last night really made me hate the tick shot more than i already did. last night was a great match and it deserved a great finish. what it got was a 10th end that felt like just a formality.

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quote:

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Originally posted by misty1
last night really made me hate the tick shot more than i already did. last night was a great match and it deserved a great finish. what it got was a 10th end that felt like just a formality.

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The tick shot needs to be regulated. It eliminated what could have been a brilliant finish to a great game last night.


A couple ideas:

If a rock is on the centre line then it should not be able to be moved off the centre line.

Or there could be lines on one or two feet either side of the centre line in the free guard zone and rocks that come to rest in that zone delimited by those lines cannot be moved outside those lines until you'd normally be allowed to hit (5th rock of the end in 4 rock rule). If rocks are removed from the zone then they are replaced and the shooter is removed as per normal free guard zone rules.


I like the second option. It still allows for some sort of tick shot but it needs to be very precise and even then the ticked rock is still somewhat useful.

I think this would make for many exciting finishes and probably more aggressive play earlier to try to avoid being tied in the last end knowing that you can't tick your way to victory.

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I've been a holdout against being worried about the tick shot.

But I realize now after this week that when the team with hammer is tied or up in the score, I did not watch any of the 10th ends this week. I just went and did something else and checked the score later. When too many people do that, it's a problem.

My favoured solution of all suggested would be four foot lines. You can tick a rock, but further than two feet away from the centre line.

I'd like to see the slams experiment for a year or two with some of these things to see what the effects are.

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Years ago, I played in a series of "fun-spiels" where each game used a different rule variation. In one of these games, there was a tire on the ice, at the house end, where the hog line meets the centre line. Any stone that hit the tire was out of play, and if the tire was moved, it had to be replaced.

It was meant to encourage a centre-guard draw game, but the ice was straight, and the tire came from a truck -- it was so big that nobody could draw the button. The only two ways to get to the pin were hit-and-roll or angle-raise.

This messed up everybody's strategy. We'd all been taught that having the hammer means you can afford to take chances, especially if you keep the path to the four-foot open, because if things don't work out, you can always draw for a single. But in this game, you could never get the four-foot open, and there wasn't even any point trying, so we had to think of something else.

The rule also reduced the value of last rock to almost zero, mostly (I suspect) because it created conditions that nobody could handle. Certainly the elite players would have had less trouble with it than we did. But even for them, it would still have taken a really good shot to get a stone near the button.

Even though it was frustrating, it was still a lot fun. We tend to forget that for most of its history, curling has been a sport where a really good shot was a rarity, not the expected thing.

And with this truck tire rule, we kind of accidentally re-discovered the past. We found out that making the game more difficult actually makes it better.

I'm not saying it would be a good idea to run championship curling games with a truck tire on the ice, but I think this experience argues in favour of a rule that would protect guards from being moved at all, at least early in the end.

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quote:

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Originally posted by fresca
so if you cant tic - you are creating a situation where being one up after 9 you might as well shake hands because most times last rock will give 2 or 3.

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