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Tips for getting better at Tetris

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 Hello everyone, it seems to be that time of the week again. For this post, I thought I might share some of my wisdom from being a tetris god with all of you. My goal with this information is to get as many people as possible to be interested in the beautiful game of Tetris. #1: Leave one column empty If you leave either the farthest right or farthest left column empty, you gain the opportunity to drop a long piece into the column, which gives a lot of points. In addition, you can save a long piece in the hold box to guarantee that you have one available at all times. This is one of the best ways to get a high score in Tetris. #2: Always pay attention to upcoming pieces If you do this consistently, you will become able to plan ahead and make the best possible plays with what you have. In many scenarios, you will need a specific piece to fill a certain section. Looking at the upcoming pieces allows you to scout ahead for this piece. #3: Stack the pieces higher in the center I don't ...
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Attempting Classic Tetris

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 In my last post, a anonymous commenter by the username of "John" left the following comment: The comment left by "John" on last week's post. He is clearly a tetris expert. I wonder who he could be? This comment made me have a realization that the version of Tetris that I played in my previous posts (the one on tetris.com) is considered to be "modern Tetris", and is different from the original version people played back in the 80's. So I decided to give the classic version a try. Aside from the differences mentioned by "John" in the comment above (no hold box, random pieces), there are a lot of other small differences that make the game significantly harder. I will list them below: There is no way to instantly drop pieces, making the early game a lot more tedious because they fall so slowly. You can only see one piece in advance (you can see three in modern tetris), which makes planning your moves a lot harder. Pieces stop moving instantl...
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Post #4

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 Sorry for the uncreative title, I couldn't think of one. Once again, I failed to beat my Tetris high score of 543,997. However, the reason for this is that rather than attempting to beat my score, I tried something else. The ability to hold pieces is vitally important in Tetris. For anyone who doesn't know, this involves placing your current piece in a storage area to save for later and instead using the next piece. If there was already a piece being held, that piece will be swapped out instead. This is a great strategy for when you don't have anywhere to drop your current piece, as it ensures that the player always has at least two options for which move they want to make. So I asked myself, what if I removed this feature that is vitally important for the balance of the game? In order to achieve the highest possible score without holding any pieces (by the end of the game, the hold area should be empty), I first needed to come up with a new strategy. Usually, one column i...
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:(

 As you might be able to tell from the title of this post, I was unsuccessful this week in my goal of conquering my Tetris high score. Those who read my last blog post will likely recall that I obtained a new high score of 543,997, which is over 40,000 points higher than my previous high score. While I made several attempts to achieve an even higher score, my efforts were ultimately fruitless. I don't remember the highest score I achieved this week, but I think it was somewhere around the 470,000 mark. (I restarted my computer so tetris.com deleted all my high scores.) There are several reasons I can attribute to my failure to accomplish my goal this week. One is that I did not have very much time to play Tetris due to having a large workload in most of my classes. (This isn't entirely true, as I procrastinated for most of my work, but my point still stands.) Another major reason is that I simply experienced burnout. After around 5 unsuccessful attempts to beat my high score, I...
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I beat my high score after 2 attempts

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 Good golly, that was fast! Last weekend, many of my friends used the free time to get as much work done as possible on college applications, which were due November 1st. However, since I knew I would have more than enough time to finish my applications, decided to instead take a break from all the stress with a game of Tetris. Instead of focusing on getting a high score, I just relaxed, playing some chill music in the background. Without realizing it, I ended up surpassing the score of 400,000. (For reference, my goal is slightly over 500,000. Also, this was my first game of Tetris in several weeks.) This was surprising, as I expected my score to be a lot less. From this experience, I realized two strategies that would be helpful in my goal: background music, and ignoring the score counter. I put a sticky note over the score and tried again. This time, I played nearly perfectly, making hardly any mistakes until I reached the higher levels. (In case you don't know, the pieces fall ...
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The Purpose Of This Blog

I have always loved the game of Tetris. Anyone who has ever played Tetris knows that clearing four rows at once with a line piece is one of the most satisfying things one can experience. Sadly, I haven't been able to play it that much lately due to college applications. With this blog, I hope to reignite my love for this classic game by attempting to achieve a new high score each week. More than a year ago, I achieved a score of 503,550, which to this day remains the only time I have ever broken past the 500,000 mark. Every week, I will write about my progress in my quest to achieve a new high score. Since I haven't played the game in a long time, this should take a while. -Gus
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