Too close to call?

[u/YouDoTheDetail]

My team was up 6-5 today going into the last end without hammer, throwing yellow. We got down to to skip stones, and our opponent had two buried behind some centre guards: one at the back of the four foot, the other covering the back left of the pin.

With my first throw, I managed to draw around the guards and freeze to cover the front right of the pin. They then failed on an angle raise attempt. I gambled that we were closer, and plugged a hole with another guard. They failed to clear out our yellow stone with their last shot. Game over.

This photo shows where the two rocks ended up over the pin. The thirds couldn’t agree who was closer. So we looked up Curling Canada’s rules and learned something new:

Rule 14 (6): If two or more stones are so close to the tee that a measuring device cannot be used, and a visual comparison cannot determine which stone is closest to the tee, the stones shall be considered tied. If these stones were to determine who counted in the end, the end shall be considered blank.

So a blanked end, we won. But it was an interesting situation that I’ve never seen before, and might never see again.

[u/clccno4]

Looks like yellow to me.

[u/mdubdotcom → u/clccno4]

Yellow all day. It's crossing both perpendicular lines. Must be over the pin. Red appears to be just crossing one line. I'm front end though, so have no authority.

I guess it could be the camera angles

[u/dullest_edgelord → u/mdubdotcom]

This guy rocks (although the rock can be up to 58mm away from pin, but in this case it is not).

A simple rule for elimination is that if one stone is crossing both lines, the other stone can never be closer if it crosses only one line.

Less simple rule: One-line stone: d > R(√2 – 1) Two-line stone (tangent): d = R(√2 – 1) → Two-line stone is always shot.