The rise and fall and fall and fall of Tetris champions

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Originally published at: The rise and fall and fall and fall of Tetris champions | Boing Boing

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A lot of it comes down to a young person having quicker reactions and being able to intuit game mechanics faster, and also there’s is more access to the underlying mechanics of videogames than compared to previous decades. Plenty of How-To’s, guides and Let’s Plays give people an easier understanding on how to excel.

Is it possible for an older person to rise to the top? I think do so but too many factors are stacked against them. I myself play Overwatch regularly, i’m in my late 30’s and it’s hard to keep up with the need to react quickly and precisely but i do my best and i still have fun. Though i know i’ll never be able to compete at a high level and i’m ok with that :smiley:

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I’ve been blessed with the inability to play Tetris. It makes me sick and I cannot evacuate the shapes from my brain long after I have quit playing.

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Hrm, hate to sound loke a grumpy old man (which is my future goal anyway), but I never “got” the idea of video games. Colourful, jazzy yes, but in the end horrendous time-sinks. To play reasonably well you need to make huge investments of time and attention, and I really prefer to do other stuff, even if it’s only snoozing in my old armchair. So there.
Is that someone on my lawn?

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Not true except for really aggressive definition of “reasonably well”. I mean sure, if you want to be one of the best in the world at something, you’re going to have to put in a lot of time. But in the linked story we read about guys who play for a few months and then qualify for the Tetris world championships.

I love video games, but I don’t have much time to play them, so I log on with a buddy of mine and play Borderlands 3 for about three hours a week and I don’t care if a bunch of fast-twitch Mountain Dew-mainlining teenagers could crush us, we still have fun.

I mean, plenty of people like sports but aren’t willing or able to put in the time and effort it’d take to be professionals. I doubt you’d say what you said to someone who just wants to get in a pickup baskeball game every so often, but what’s the difference really?

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Two winners on the same network? Using the same software? Smells like cheating to me.

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Not to mention more access, period! Anyone can play competitive Tetris on a variety of affordable consoles or computers, but if you really want to be a world-class competitor at the old classic arcade games, then you need the space and disposable income to purchase said games.

I really enjoyed The King of Kong documentary and rooted for the hero dad of the film who was going up against the reigning champions, but I’ve got no doubt they would have all been put to shame by much younger competitors if this was a more affordable hobby to get into.

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This is like the revolution in yo-yos. Used to be trickes were performed slowly and carefully so people could see the difficulty. The younger generation took over and it’s all super-speed and techno, light years ahead of where it was.

I think the older experts always think “this is perfection, no need to get better than this” but there’s always has to be another goal for someone who comes along later. When you are the one pushing the envelope you have no idea how far you can go, but when someone’s already been there, you imagine going further

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Is this, like, the opposite of “being with it”, where instead of “it” changing and being left out of the hip zone, you get shoved out by better participants of “it”?

Or is it a stronger example of losing touch with “it” ?

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This is weird. Maybe two weeks ago I noticed a an old MS copy of Tetris sitting on a backup disk somewhere and started playing it again.

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Thanks to hyper-tapping and more efficient stacking, players build higher and higher, almost refusing to accept any line clearance that’s not a Tetris. To the older generation, the style seems reckless. To newer players, it’s simply the best way to play.

This sounds so much like the chess and Go strategies that AI comes up with, they seem reckless but the AI knows the odds and how to make it all work out right. Or even going for it on 4th down in football, a good underused strategy that is finally making some headway.

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For one thing we need architects. Ones who can hopefully play better than this.

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My freshman roommate poured something into my Mac 512K when I was out of the room after I refused to let him play Tetris on it because we were both pricks.

Fortunately, I came out of it with an upgrade to a Mac Plus. Eventually I married a woman who is really good at Tetris.

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Back when I paid for the xbox membership I’d play 6 player (or was it 7) tetris after a coupe strong beers. Most of the time I could still kick ass. Years of play make the muscle memory pretty rote so that not even an alcohol buzz can knock it out. A good grasp of multi-player strategy is important too. PvP play has way different tactics than just playing against the clock. Gotta carefully line up who you’re targeting and then hit them with a couple back-to-back tetris and that will knock out a lot of players.

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According to the article you’re just a few months away from maxing out

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Having started my relationship with the Tengen version of Tetris, I was never able to adjust to the vastly inferior official Nintendo release. I still have the cartridge and play it fairly regularly.

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This Tetris is more my speed.

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Yep, that sounds about right. Though my fingers may max out sooner.

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