Abstract

This paper addresses two important strategic questions in the sport of curling, namely (i) when it is best to blank rather than take one point, and (ii) when entering the final end, is it preferable to be winning by one point without last rock advantage or be losing by one point with last rock advantage. A multinomial logistic regression for end score probabilities and a Markov model for game win probabilities are introduced to answer both of the questions of interest. An asymptotic sampling procedure is used for statistical inference. The paper also updates and expands the data used in the previously published empirical curling analyses to take account of an important rule change.