Tetris.

Game or a Lifestyle?

by Olle.

I’m looking at the wrist-watch before I start my Lexus LF-A. It doesn’t really matter what time it is though, I am thinking as I drive through central Manhattan on my way to work. I get to set up my schedule quite on my own anyway. I start the day with some finger-relaxing movements. Some stretching and some bending - it’s important to loosen up any possible numbness and rigidness in my fingers. I use professional finger-stretch utilities, and my personal coach is scrutinizing everything I do. After doing this for about half an hour, we’re going through some neck-stretching techniques and some other body exercises in order to get my body in a perfectly relaxed condition before we go through the tactical part and talk through the goods and the bads of yesterday. I need to be 100 % fit for my task, my mission – it’s another day at the office.

I work as a professional Tetris player and have been doing so for three years. Among my merits I have gold from Tetris World Cup from 2007 and 2008, Tetris Olympics 2009, silver in Tetris Grand Prix Slam 2007, and a also humiliating bronze from the Annual Uzbekhi Tetris Pride Festival Competition in 2005. I have also, of course, participated in the World All-Star Tetris Team every year since 2003 (a world team will come in handy in case we one day face an invasion from aliens ready to battle us in Tetris).

My career started off with a normal childhood Tetris-obsession, the one I think all normal kids born after 1980 have had for at least a couple of weeks. Only for me it never stopped. I never got bored and quit, I just kept playing. As we all know, the goal of Tetris is to place the randomly falling pieces (or “tetrominoes”) together so that one line of the playing field (the so called “matrix”) gets filled without any gaps. There are seven different tetriminoes, and they can all rotate with 90-degree steps (but the so called “O-piece” doesn’t change as it rotates, for logical reasons). They fall, you rotate them and try to fit them in to clear a line. When a line is cleared, it disappears and gives more room for the upcoming tetriminoes. And on it goes. Faster and faster. Its genial in its simplicity.

You gain points in Tetris. There are many different ways of scoring points, and all games have different systems. The most common way to get extra points are to clear several lines at a time. Clear four lines at a time is known as a “Tetris” and gives you way more than four times a single line clear. You build up a four lines high mountain of pieces, but leave one row free. Then you wait for God to drop the I-piece and you neatly place it in the gap – bang – you’ve got a Tetris, and earn “a tremendous amount of points”, as the guide on Tetrisfriends.com calls it. Or how about the T-spin – you leave a T-shaped gap somewhere on the matrix, in a way that you need to drop your T-piece down and then by rotate it in the right direction “lock it” in to position in the created T-slot. This is a very effective – but hard – way to get a lot of points. The possibilities are endless! Clear a line with a T-spin! Clear consecutive lines and finish up with a T-spin line clear!

There is a large Tetris community out there. Internet forums and discussion boards, constantly discussing what technique is the best and whether T-spins should generate points or if it’s more honest to be more old-school and save up to tetrises. The discussions are wild, hot-tempered and controversial, boiling with different opinions in a mist of lifelong Tetris experiences. I don’t think you can imagine how many Tetris geeks are out there – and they are waiting for your opinion! Get in shape, get the shapes right, and go beat them!

As for me, I’ve just finished a day at the office. Now I’ll roll down to see a new sport car. My Tetris sponsors just offered me a new one with the exhaust fumes coming out as tetriminoe clouds in the back.

For the interested Tetris geek:

Basic facts about Tetris: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetris

A Tetris wiki: http://tetrisconcept.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page

Tetrisfriends’ Tetris games: http://www.tetrisfriends.com/

Tetris forum: http://www.neoseeker.com/forums/3422/

Twitter: @tetrisfriends

Olle writing for The Best Stuff I See.