Advances in Curling Game Information Analysis by Considering Starting Position

Abstract

Japanese curling teams have been recently preparing for Pyeongchang Winter Olympics in 2018. In curling, there are three factors influencing game performance: physical factor, human factor, and strategic/tactical factor. The strategic/tactical factor is considered as the most important at top level. To support the strategic/tactical factor, we proposed the concept of Curling Informatics. As the first step of Curling Informatics we developed a digital scorebook iCE for digital collection of game information, storing it in a database and performing further analysis to improve player performance. In this article, we further contribute to this project by analyzing game information of world national top level teams. We have previously confirmed that correlation between shot accuracy and game score could differ with the team level or position. We also found out that selected tactics and psychological pressure on opponent team has impact on game result. However, previous analyses disregarded the order of teams in play, which could result in confusion of strategic tendencies or play characteristics. In this paper, we carried out analysis of correlations of shot scores considering whether the teams started as the first or the second. We did this to specify the process of how the team strategy/tactics influences game results.

An examination of studies related to the sport of curling: a scoping review

“…Eleven studies considered strategic/tactical factors of the sport based on the notion of its cruciality to achieving winning outcomes. Four studies evaluated game information using the sequentially mentioned AI program iCE; a portable digital scorebook system within the novel field of curling informatics that effectively analyzes curling tactics and strategies in order to establish correlations between differences in shot accuracies and game scores ( 29 – 32 ).…”