making a call expecting a miss

sometimes in curling it's easy to think that the other team will miss. If someone plays 80%, which is good, that's 1 miss every 5 shots. Still, expecting a miss is fine for wednesday night Brodie (or other league play), but not so good when you're at the worlds. Take the first end of China/USA. China has last rock. This is the situation that USA faces on Skips first.


China might be sitting two, which is sort of scary. But the way this end went, this is actually a good situation for US. They could just freeze to the back one, and really choke off the scoring area. Instead, they call a peel weight over the top double.

Here's my real problem with the call. The perfect double leaves China with a come around to the top four. They would play the inturn, and that would open up jams on the back red.

I understand the temptation to play a hit, but this is such a hard shot. A better shot, in my opinion, is pushing the back yellow an inch, and sitting shot and third. China would be left wondering what to play to get two.

These little moments in games are the ones that add up to free points. Give them away, and it takes 90% to win games.