Curling scores by counting how many of one team’s stones are closer to the center than any of the other team’s stones, but only after all stones in an end have been thrown.

The basic idea

  • The circular target area is called the house ; the very middle is the button.
  • A game is divided into ends , which work like innings in baseball: in each end, both teams throw all their stones, then you count the score.
  • Only one team can score in any given end.

How points are counted in an end

  1. When all stones have been thrown, find which stone is closest to the button. That team is the only one that scores in that end.
  1. Starting from that closest stone, count how many of that team’s stones are closer to the button than the opponent’s closest stone.
  1. Each of those stones is worth 1 point, so an end might be worth 1, 2, 3 points, and so on, up to a maximum of 8 points if all of one team’s stones are counting and all of the other team’s stones are farther away; that rare perfect situation is called an eight‑ender.

A very short description curlers use:
“You score 1 point for each rock you have that is closer to the button than all of the opponent’s rocks (and only the team with the very closest rock scores at all).”

What doesn’t count

  • Stones that are completely outside the house score 0 , no matter how many there are.
  • If no stone from either team is touching the house at the end of an end, nobody scores; that’s called a blank end.

The hammer and strategy flavor

  • The team that throws the last stone in an end has the hammer , which is a big strategic advantage because they get the final chance to change the scoring picture.
  • If the team with hammer scores, the other team usually gets hammer in the next end; if an end is blank in many formats, the same team keeps hammer for the next end.
  • Over the whole game (often 8–10 ends), teams try to manage risk: sometimes they’re happy to give up 1 point while keeping hammer next end, rather than allow a multiple‑point score against them.

Quick example

  • End finishes with Red having stones in 1st, 3rd, and 4th closest spots; Yellow has the 2nd closest stone.
  • Red scores 1 point only for the single stone that is closer than Yellow’s best stone; the 3rd and 4th stones don’t count because Yellow’s stone “cuts off” the count.

TL;DR: After each end, figure out which single stone is closest to the button; only that team scores, and they get 1 point for every stone they have that’s closer to the button than the opponent’s closest stone, with a maximum of 8.