Have you ever seen a pro play Tetris at maximum overdrive? Probably not. Yeah, that’s usually normal at high level competitive Tetris play. Here’s a quick sample. Scary right?  Well, you too can start your competitive Tetris career and with our help, you can land yourselves a bit higher than the other beginners. Throughout the past few weeks, we went through many sessions to practice and sharpen our skills. With the guidance of Tommy and James’ Tetris platform, we were able to improve our skills. It took us a long time and we definitely sucked at the beginning, but we prevailed and were able to play competitive Tetris at a much better level compared to how we were before. Learning takes a lot of time and patience. It is not the skill that you have at the start that is important, but rather what you learn in the end that matters.

Learning requires time and patience to achieve your goal. At the beginning of our Tetris experience, I could only clear lines slowly and play Tetris normally. However, after practicing for awhile, I was able to consistently to the DT cannon, t-spin, and the all-clear. I was only able to achieve this through practice and patience. At the start of the project, we did a test run, and we could barely clear lines. The only thing I could do was a tetris (where you clear 4 lines using the i-piece), and even then, I wasn’t too good at doing that. The next thing we did was practice. After some time, I could survive for quite some time while clearing lines, so I decided to learn the DT cannon. At first it looked hard, but then I realized that the first 7 pieces are always confirmed, so setting up became easy. This is also where I learned how to t, s, z, l, and j-spin. They are easy to perform now. After that, Tommy taught me the all-clear. It is more complicated, and the there is a chance you won’t be able to complete because of the piece arrangement. However, I learn and now I can also perform that trick quite easily now. This is just goes to show how taking the time and patience can allow you to accomplish many great things, not just for tetris.

The skill you have at the beginning of a learning process is not relevant to the end result, but the effort you sink in is. When we started out to create a blog about Tetris, Alex knew absolutely nothing  about Tetris aside from the very basics that everyone knows about: it’s block stacking game, try to clear as many lines as you can with the pieces you have. However, I knew a few fundamentals of Tetris, such as the 7-bag rule, which is that in every set of 7 that you get, you are guaranteed to get each and every tetrimino, which is 7. I also knew of the term t-spin, which refers to rotating a t-piece into a place that it would never be able to fit into without rotating it.  However, even though I initially knew more about Tetris than Alex, it was clear that things were not the same once we were finished with our project. While I practiced Tetris during class time and sometimes on the weekend, Alex had been practicing during his own free time as well. By the end, I would be hard-pressed to say that I am still a better Tetris player than Alex. This shows that regardless what skill you have at the beginning of a learning process, it is the effort and hard work that you put into learning that has the most impact on how you perform and learn. Even though I knew more about Tetris than Alex in the beginning, he ended up surpassing me once we finished the project because he spent more time and effort into practicing than I did. This applies to much more than Tetris, as we could have been learning how to play an instrument and would have still ended up with this result. Hard work and effort has a large impact on the amount of information that you can learn during a learning process.

In this project, we were able to learn how to play Tetris. We started out as people who just began Tetris and did not know much about it. Through our hard work and patience, we were able to slowly improve. While we began as complete noobs and sucked, we were able to successfully overcome the skill curve and become better at Tetris. What we learned in this passion project can be applied universally.  Just work hard and stay persistent and then you will naturally be able to overcome skill barriers or other talent related barriers. Believe in yourself and never give up.

Albatross is a very familiar looking setup as it looks almost identical to the Hachispin but it leads into different things. The Albatross allows you to T-Spin Double and then build a T-Spin Triple which follows into another T-Spin Double. The Hachispin allows for a T-Spin Single and then a T-Spin Triple which can lead to either another T-Spin Triple or a T-Spin Double. Both have their own uses and niches but Albatross is harder to pull of consistently as it requires an early O piece unlike Hachispin where you can be much more flexible. However, Albatross has arguably slightly more damage since it can lead to many different outcomes and even another TST after the TSD.

Start by setting the O J and L piece exactly like it is in Hachispin. If you got the J piece first, put the Z piece all the way on the left, facing up. If you got the L piece first, place the S piece all the way on the right, facing up.

Today, we learned how to set up another Tetris opener, the Hachispin. The hachispin starts with a t-spin single and then can quickly transition into a t-spin triple. From there, it can transition into many different outcomes, all of which have their own viability and flexibility. It can also lead to a perfect clear with a fairly high chance, estimated to be around 70%. The hachispin is a great opener and also has two ways to play it out with.

The first variation is when you get an early O piece. Using the NEXT is among one of the more important things for Hachispin as it depends a lot on your piece order, unlike the DT-Cannon where ZJ and SL are interchangeable. Look for the first J or L piece. Whichever one comes first is going to be the direction that you take. If the J piece comes first, put the Z piece all the way on the left. Follow the image and try to build the formation.

After this, T-spin single into the slot that has been prepared. It is where the Z O and S are. You should get a formation looking like this.

After this, place either an S or Z piece to form the T shaped hole for the T-Spin Triple. Then, use either a J or L piece to form the overhang for the TST.

T-Spin Triple and then from there, you can build a Tetris well or just continue to clear lines.

Today, we learned about the perfect clear opening. The perfect clear opening is basically an opening that lets you get the Perfect Clear or PC bonus. It is a fast setup and has a fairly high chance of success, calculated to be about 75%. It’s simple and can deal quite the bit of damage when performed correctly however, you need speed as if the opponent sends you any garbage, the PC opener will fail as the garbage will make it so that you do not have a fully cleared board. We tried many times to get the PC and eventually did. We looked into why we were failing a lot and found out that it was because we needed to utilize the spin mechanic and not try to brute force the pieces together.

Start by building the picture above. Usually, you should add an I piece next to the LOJ formation so that you can use 4 pieces to PC. Next, simply look at your next, hold, and current pieces to find a way to fit 4 pieces into that area. You need to be able to calculate and spin very well in order to PC consistently, most PCs require very careful thinking and also loads of spins in order to pull off. After the PC, you can move onto anything you want, even try for a second PC!

Tommy’s PC Guide

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zoL3uEunCMsE8tCtG4fOEGO8SJinxFLA/view

HardDrop’s PC Article

http://harddrop.com/wiki/Perfect_Clear_Opener

This week, we learned a Tetris opening: the DT cannon, also known as the Double Triple cannon. The setup utilizes the t-spin, the SRS spin that gives you bonus points and damage when executed correctly. Many people use the opening because very consistent and has many possible continuations after finishing. At first, we couldn’t really get the hang of it but after a few tries and guidance from Tommy, we were able to perform it.

Start by placing the O piece all the way on the left. This will be part of the DT Base. Next, make either of these formations. Both work, just that the one with LS on the left is slightly faster.

From here, the quickest and usually most efficient way to build the DT Formation is like so. This is the most efficient because it uses the 7-bag and effectively uses your first 14 pieces, which should nearly guarantee this setup.

After this, simply T-Spin twice using the left. When T-Spinning, be sure to hold the soft drop button or else the T might get stuck in the wrong position. If you need help, you can take a look at the video guide. After this, you are left with either a side 4 wide or a Tetris well. I prefer the Tetris well but you can do whatever. Common continuations include: DT-King Crimson, DT-S4W, DT-2-7 and more. DT-KC is usually inconsistent and S4W requires some skill in both rotations and predictions. I recommend the Tetris well or 2-7 stacking.

Tommy’s DT-Cannon Guide

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1exOfuJUMlFTymiJ2pZii3xtJH1l8VuW3/view

HardDrop’s Article on the DT-Cannon

http://harddrop.com/wiki/Double_Triple_Cannon

Tetris is a long-running franchise that has been alive for more than 20 years and is still running strong with it’s most recent and more popular releases, Tetris 99. Although the original Tetris is a very old game, few people play it, whether it be because of how easy it looks or how they think they can lose by the seemingly random and occasionally unlucky generation of the blocks. Our goal and project is to figure out how we can draw the masses of people that are uninterested in Tetris because of how easy it looks. The point of this blog to show people how Tetris can be interesting and fun while also being very strategy-based and not a mindless game that is 100% based on luck. We will include Tetris mechanics, techniques, basic setups, competitive setups, and competitive strategies. To show our progress, we will document our progress through this blog to show how we’ve improved. So far, we have played 1 round of tetris each, and we survived about 7 minutes. That is ok, but not the best. This will be our starting point, and hopefully by the end we can become very skilled players.

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton