16-Year-Old Dethrones Tetris World Champion With Difficult Hyper-Tap Technique (kotaku.com) 70
Over the weekend, seven-time winner Jonas Neubauer showed up at the Classic Tetris World Championship in Portland, Oregon like he has every year since it moved there in 2011. Instead of adding another championship to his name, he finished in second place this time, bested by 16-year-old Joseph Saelee who went on an amazing three-game tear. From a report: "The kid played with pure heart, the most clutch Tetris that we've seen from anyone," Neubauer said after the dust had settled. "He just really had the ability, had the natural ability, and let it shine as bright as he could in his first tournament. [It's] truly an honor to pass the torch to the new generation of Tetris players." The veteran stood on stage holding a silver trophy, his first since losing to Harry Hong in 2014, and the unlikely Saelee, tears still in his eyes, hoisted the gold to applause from the crowd at Sunday's Retro Game Expo crowd.
Though Tetris came out on the NES in 1989, the Classic World Championship tournament as it exists today didn't get started until 2010 after the game's competitive scene spent most of the aughts trading strategies, high scores, and footage evidence throughout a scattered network of forums and websites. Now, top players from around the world compete annually at the Expo using the original game and controllers played on old CRTs to see who can get the highest score in individual head-to-head matchups.
Though Tetris came out on the NES in 1989, the Classic World Championship tournament as it exists today didn't get started until 2010 after the game's competitive scene spent most of the aughts trading strategies, high scores, and footage evidence throughout a scattered network of forums and websites. Now, top players from around the world compete annually at the Expo using the original game and controllers played on old CRTs to see who can get the highest score in individual head-to-head matchups.
Re: This Slipped Through (Score:5, Funny)
only to end up as jobless nerds in their moms basement
Or have a brilliant career loading FedEx trucks.
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Considering the fact that for last eight years, seven of them went to a much older fellow, would make young guy winning actually news?
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Why "still"?
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Isn't this just a "solved game" already? Aren't there AIs out there that can perfectly beat anyone at Tetris? Once this is true, what is the point of playing?
Yes, a can opener can open a can better than you, a front end loader can move more dirt than you, and a car can move faster than you. So just kill yourself now. What's the point in living?
Or maybe you can strive to be the best you can be at whatever you do and not worry about it. Hell, there's a lot of physical activity that I can't do anywhere near as well now as I could do in my 20's and 30's. I still lift weights and do cardio, but nothing like I could do back then. But it doesn't mean I'm going to st
Modern Tetris is solved (Score:5, Informative)
Isn't this just a "solved game" already?
Classic Tetris isn't solved, but modern Tetris (since 2001) is, as colour_thief and I proved back in 2007 [harddrop.com]. Someone made a video of the solution [youtube.com].
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Nice work, that's a great explanation of how it works too.
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Hyper-tapping (Score:5, Informative)
Since the summary didn't bother to mention what the "hyper-tapping" technique from the headline is, here's the explanation from the article:
Unlike many other top players, including Neubauer, Saelee uses hyper-tapping, a technique that requires players to press the D-pad rapidly at the the correct intervals in order to move Tetris pieces in different directions without losing speed. Normally players just hold down left or right on the D-pad. Saeleeâ(TM)s strategy on the other hand requires more than 10 button presses a second to be effective. Itâ(TM)s a riskier and more demanding style of play, but one that ended up paying off.
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That kid must go through a lot of controllers
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the carpal tunnel pain .. my hand ache just thinking about it
Re:But this isn't even close to speed Tetris... (Score:5, Informative)
TGM is fundamentally different from NES Tetris. They might as well be different games. The most important difference is something called 'lock delay' which is how long it takes a piece to 'lock' in to position once it reaches the top of the stack. It's very generous in TGM (30 frames). In NES Tetris, lock delay (I believe) is limited to the time it takes for the piece to fall to another row. Modern "guidelines" Tetris is similar to TGM, though it's far more generous in that it allows you to 'reset' the lock counter on a successful shift or rotation, rather that just on a drop.
This means that you can play modern Tetris and TGM at much higher speeds than NES Tetris. At 20g speeds, pieces don't fall from the top so much as they appear at the top of the stack. In NES Tetris, that would make the game unplayable as you couldn't move the pieces at all! In TGM, 20g speed is perfectly playable as you have an abundance of time (a full half-second) to shift and rotate your piece. By preloading DAS during ARE, you don't even need that long. Strong players will press down to instantly lock their piece once it's in place, saving time.
The minimal lock delay makes NES Tetris very difficult to play. Pieces feel like they're 'sticky'. It takes a lot more speed and precision to play at a high level than the seemingly 'faster' TGM and modern Tetris games you might have seen. I've played TGM for less than a year and I'm an S9 player. I've been playing NES Tetris longer than I can remember, but my best scores are just over 200k.
Joseph Saelee's play is nothing short of remarkable. It's 'next level' play. 4-minute-mile stuff.
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10 presses per second is incredible, especially for a sustained period. I seem to recall that the world record for button presses per second on a NES pad was 16 for many years, and that's just hammering the same button.
This Neubauer guy is a class act (Score:5, Insightful)
"The kid played with pure heart, the most clutch Tetris that we've seen from anyone," Neubauer said after the dust had settled. "He just really had the ability, had the natural ability, and let it shine as bright as he could in his first tournament. [It's] truly an honor to pass the torch to the new generation of Tetris players."
Wow, a champion accepting de-throning with dignity and grace. This kind of demonstration of humility, self-respect, and good old-fashioned sportsmanship is so lacking in the public sphere and I was moved by it. If Neubauer has children, I hope they're proud of him right now, because I sure am. What a class act.
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The Olympic athletes who throw a hissyfit over only getting bronze or silver should take a long, hard look at his speech and then their own behavior.
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The bronze medalists usually don't throw hissyfits. Getting an olympic medal is a great honor and (according to a study a few years back) they remain proud and happy about it later in life. The gold medalists are of course even happier. So who is unhappy? The silver medalists, that's who. They are PISSED.
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An Olympic athlete has been working for 10+ years and who knows how much cash to make it in for one test. It's amazing how much stress there is over one moment. I'm amazed anyone who wins the silver, barely edged out of the gold, can stand. I'm guessing that's one reason for the delay before the medal ceremony. People need time to go off and cry.
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Watching him play though he looked about a .5s away from throwing his controller across the room and yelling at his mom for not having a hot pocket ready.
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Indeed.
It's a pity more professional athletes don't have sportsmanship and respect these days.
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I came to post this exact comment. You are absolutely correct. Hats off to Neubauer.
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It is a retro gaming competition. Even the sportsmanship is retro! :)
midichlorians (Score:5, Funny)
Obviously it's his midichlorian level that's letting him play Tetris so well. If he can manage to beat Sebulba, then you'll know for sure.
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Obviously it's his midichlorian level that's letting him play Tetris so well. If he can manage to beat Sebulba, then you'll know for sure.
Give that Neubauer has an, until now, record breaking midichlorian level of 8997, It makes me wonder if Saelee has a level of...
OVER 9000!!!
That's the best? (Score:2)
Maybe the difference is we actually played on a PC w/ keyboard in the late 80s instead of some silly dpad thing, but I've had games last well over an hour. The game itself actually gets pretty monotonous once you reach max speed and have managed to set yourself in a pretty good position.
Shirase mode (Score:5, Informative)
The game itself actually gets pretty monotonous once you reach max speed
That's why modern Tetris has a much higher max speed than classic Tetris. Could you keep up with Shirase mode in Tetris The Grand Master 3: Terror-Instinct [youtube.com]? It starts fast, where pieces land immediately on the stack giving you a split second to shift them into place, and only gets faster from there.
Pfft (Score:2)
shrug... (Score:1)
shrug... and nothing of value was lost.
Who cares (Score:1)
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A PC version made its way to the US long before 1989, too. I remember playing it on an IBM XT clone in the mid '80s.
That description (Score:1)
"The kid played with pure heart, ..........after the dust had settled. "He just really had the ability, had the natural ability, and let it shine as bright as he could .......truly an honor to pass the torch to the new generation ..... tears still in his eyes,
Such a dramatic description for playing Tetris. I mean yes, high level Tetris play is impressive to watch. But still it's just funny to see such bravado for playing Tetris.