HALIFAX -- Canada's Pat Simmons warmed up for the playoffs Thursday by edging Finland's Aku Kauste 6-5 at the Ford world men's curling championship at Scotiabank Centre.

Simmons hit a draw for two in the 10th end to improve to 9-1 and remain in a first-place tie with defending champion Thomas Ulsrud of Norway, a 10-8 winner over Japan's Yusuke Morozumi. Norway and Canada have already locked up spots in the Page playoff 1-2 game on Friday night.

Kauste flashed his final stone to give Simmons the chance to go for the win. The Canadian skip made no mistake by curling his rock into the four-foot to score a pair.

"Obviously you don't expect them to miss, we were very fortunate there otherwise we were probably going to an extra end," Simmons said. "We'll take it. They don't always come that way, that's for sure. But you've got to take advantage when they do."

Simmons will wrap up his round-robin portion of the tournament Thursday afternoon against Italy's Joel Retornaz while Norway will take on Switzerland's Marc Pfister.

Norway has the early edge on the No. 1 seed since it handed Canada its only loss. The top seed will get the advantage of choosing hammer or stones in the 1-2 game.

"We'd like to put pressure on Norway to have to win again to keep hammer," Simmons said. "That's pretty big and that's reason enough (to finish strong). Not only that, you don't want to go into the playoffs on a sour losing note either.

"So we're quite happy with the way we battled out there and that's the positive we're going to take from that game."

In other early games, China's Jialiang Zang dumped Scotland's Ewan MacDonald 10-3 and American John Shuster topped Jiri Snitil of the Czech Republic 6-2. Announced attendance was 1,712 at the 10,500-seat venue.

The top four teams at the end of round-robin play Thursday night will make the playoffs.

After 15 draws, Sweden's Niklas Edin was alone in third place at 6-3 and Switzerland was fourth at 5-4. Finland and the United States were tied at 5-5.

If a tiebreaker is needed, it will be played Friday morning.

Japan and China were at 4-6, Italy was 3-6 and the Czechs and Scotland were 3-7. Russia was last in the 12-team field at 2-7.

The medal games are set for Sunday. Canada finished fourth at last year's event in Beijing.