Curling Tactics: Tactical Plan 1 - Hit Everything

[@randycliff4045]

We are being taught with the five-rock rule (which I mostly understand), so the hit everything plan is pretty much theoretical. Still there are several great comments in this lesson for me to think about.

[@Granitetron]

I struggle with calling a game like this. I do feel like lead through skip my team is good at hitting but at the same time playing end after end with one or two rocks in play isn't a fun game to play to me.I I know my team doesn't generally enjoy playing wide open ends and blanking a lot (we're just a mixed team of friends having fun not a competitive team) Almost invariably I end up trying to mix it up. Am I wrong in thinking this way? Should I just stick to our strengths ...blast blast blast all game and try to win all our games 2-1?

[@CurlingClass]

There are 3 levels of strategy that you need to consider. 1 - Game Plan, 2 - End Plan, 3 - Tactical Plan. What you're seeing in this video is just a Tactical Plan for one end. Your coach or skip should develop a game plan and then split the game up into a "playbook" of End Plans. So for example, End Plans for ends 1 -2, then End Plans for ends 3-5, then end plans for end 6, then end 7 then end 8. So for each end you may have a goal of Score 2, or Score at least 1, or Force 1, etc... Then you utilize a tactical plan to achieve that End Plan. So for example let's say you're up 2 in the 7th. You don't want to give up a big steal so maybe you want to Score 1 and at worst give up a steal of 1. Then I'd recommend using this Tactical Plan - Hit Everything in order to keep it clean and at worst case hopefully you only give up a steal of one (and that's if you flash a couple stones and can't draw to the 4 foot or hit and stick, etc... Ultimately your team would have to have a few misses to give up more than a steal of 1). I'm going to go into much more detail about these things in the Members Area of my website when it's live, but hopefully this helps you understand the difference between tactical plans and Game Plans.