What Is the Hammer in Curling?

The hammer in curling is the last-stone advantage: the right to throw the final rock of an end. It matters because whoever throws last sees exactly where every other stone has settled and gets the closing move, which makes scoring far easier. Teams treat the hammer as a resource to protect, spend and win back throughout a game.

If you are watching curling and see a small symbol next to one team on the scoreboard, that marks who holds the hammer. Here is how it is won, how it passes between teams, and why a team will sometimes refuse to score in order to keep it.

Why the hammer is such an advantage

An end in curling is 16 stones, eight per team, thrown alternately. The team with the hammer delivers the very last one. By that point they can see the whole house, so they can draw the winning stone into place or knock an opponent’s rock out with no chance for a reply.

According to World Curling, a team with the last-stone advantage is well positioned to score at least one point and often more. That final, unanswered shot is the difference between reacting and dictating.

How the hammer is decided

The first-end hammer and every hammer after it are settled differently.

• First end: in championship play it is decided by the Last Stone Draw (LSD). Two players from each team throw a stone toward the button, one clockwise and one counter-clockwise, and the team whose stones finish closest to the centre earns the hammer. In casual or club games, a simple coin toss usually replaces this.
• Every end after: the team that did not score in the previous end gets the hammer for the next one.

That second rule is the engine of curling strategy. Scoring is good for the scoreboard, but it costs you the hammer.

How the hammer changes hands

The pattern is easiest to see laid out directly.

What happened last end	Who gets the hammer next end
Team A scored	Team B (the team that did not score)
Team B scored	Team A
End was blanked (no score)	Whoever already had it keeps it

That blank-end row is the clever part. If a team holds the hammer but can only manage a single point, they hand the advantage straight to the opponent. So strong teams will sometimes throw their last stone clean through the house on purpose, scoring nothing, to preserve the hammer for an end where they can score two or more.

The single-point dilemma

This is where curling gets strategic in a way casual viewers miss. Scoring one point with the hammer is often a poor outcome, because you trade the last-stone advantage for a single mark on the board. Elite teams would frequently rather blank the end and reset with the hammer still in hand.

The goal with the hammer is a multi-point end. Take two or three, and you have both extended your lead and, yes, given up the hammer, but you have made the exchange worth it. Understanding that trade is the key to reading a curling match beyond the score.

A note on touched stones

One rule that surprises newcomers concerns touched stones, known as a burned stone. If a player contacts a stone while it is moving, the non-offending team chooses the remedy: leave the stones where they lie, reposition them to where they would likely have ended up, or remove the touched stone entirely. Which option applies depends on where the stone was in its journey when it was touched.

Putting it together

The hammer is simple to define and deep to use: it is the last stone of the end, decided first by the draw to the button and then by who failed to score, and it is valuable enough that teams will pass up a single point to keep it. Watch for the blank ends, and you will start to see the game the way the players do.

If you are new to the sport, two other basics help it click: our guide to how much a curling stone weighs explains the roughly 40-pound rock being thrown, and curling sliders covers the footwear that lets players glide out of the hack to deliver it.