Curling rules: As Team GB go for gold here's how to play the Winter Olympic sport

With Team GB into the curling men’s final at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, this guide will help you tell your hog lines from your handles.

Known as ‘chess on ice’, curling is a sport that looks simple but is actually a complex tactical game.

The sport originated in Scotland during the 16th century where it was played on frozen ponds and lochs and immigrants exported the game to North America in the late 18th century – with the first Canadian club founded in Montreal in 1807.

It first became a Winter Olympic sport in Chamonix in 1924, where the UK won the men-only competition.

Five appearances as a demonstration sport followed, with it only becoming a regular Olympic sport in Nagano in 1998.

Here’s how you play.

There are four people in a curling team: the lead, the second, the third and the skip.

Each player delivers two stones in sequence, starting with the lead and finishing with the skip, who captains the team.

The two teams playing a game take alternate shots, meaning that each end (or round) has a total of 16 stones.

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To deliver a stone a curler slides out on the ice as directed by the skip and must release the stone before it passes a line on the ice called the hog.

Before reaching the hog the player will give the stone a ‘handle’ by rotating it either clockwise or anti-clockwise, again as directed by the skip, which will determine which way the stone curls as it travels up the ice.

The target is called the house and is located at the other end of the 46 metre-long rink of ice, which is covered with tiny bumps called pebbles.

Two sweepers follow each stone up the ice and are allowed to start brushing