Brier Notes from Draw 2

A busy Saturday night in Edmonton for the opening weekend of the 2013 Tim Horton's Brier.  Good crowds and an entertaining slate of games, with Manitoba battling Alberta out of the gate for each teams' first game.  Unfortunately we were encouraged to do "the wave" by this guy...

If I wanted exercise I wouldn't have gone to the Brier.

On the ice, Newfoundland polished off PEI swiftly and Jamie Koe of NWT/YT continued their scoring prowess by cracking a 5, immediately after surrendering a 3, and ultimattely winning 10-7 against New Brunswick. (Think OVER when betting this team).

Ontario had an early scare, falling 3-0 to BC, but managed to battle back with a 3 in the third end, several steals and an 8-4 victory in 9 ends.

The Martin vs Stoughton match was the Saturday Night Main Event.  An entertaining game though not the most well played.  Both teams no doubt are still adjusting to ice conditions and these new CCA rocks, which appear to curl across the width of a sheet if you're not careful.  Nearly 6 feet for draws was seen in some places.

Martin managed to keep his team in the game with some big shots that had the home crowd cheering.  In the 9th end, Stoughton has the hammer tied 3-3, looks in good shape to score his deuce but after a slight miscue on his first shot, faces this on his final shot:

Stoughton is Yellow

Jeff can choose a simple hit and stick for 1 or the long cross house double to score a possible deuce.  Jeff chooses the double attempt, hits the shot stone too thing and Martin steals one and heads to the tenth end up 4-3 without hammer.  Manitoba is forced to one in the 10th and ultimately steals the win after some surprising misses by Alberta third John Morris in the extra end.

Looking back on Jeff's call, let's examine the thinking:

MB scores 1 point = 60% odds to win.  

Jeff may consider that Martin is better than average but in fact this has not been the case.  Historically Martin wins in this position (one down with hammer) roughly 40%.

MB scores 2 points = 92%.

AB steals 1 point = 40%

Looking at a simple equation (haven't seen one of these in a while), let's use x as the odds Jeff considers to make the double and y the odds that he misses the double but still scores 1 (hits and rolls out).  Because there are two factors it becomes a more difficult analysis.

.60 = x(.92) + y(.6) + (1-x-y)(.4)

Looking at this very conservatively.  If we expect Jeff to at least hit the stone 50% (x+y=.5) of the time, he will need to make the double at least 31% or roughly 2/3 times that he actually hits it.  Jeff may expect to hit the rock 70% of the time.  If so and he would need to make the deuce only 19% of the time or roughly 2/7 when he actually hits the rock.

I don't agree it was the correct call or at the very least it was borderline, but if Jeff believes he can at least hit the second shot stone 70% or more, than it is the correct call.  It just looked like a long way to me.

Stay tuned for more from Edmonton all this week...