Introduction

Some people who have read my previous book, Chastity’s Chess Chapters, may falsely believe that Chess is my favorite game. It is my favorite board game, but if video games are part of the discussion, Tetris is no doubt the champion of all video games. It would be hard to find any electronic device that wasn’t capable of running some form of Tetris.

Nobody needs to read a book about Tetris to learn how to play it. In fact Tetris is so easy that I played it before I even learned how to read English. The concept of placing geometrically shaped pieces together until they form perfect lines seems to be the ideal stimulation of the mind.

But there are people who enjoy playing it, and then there are others, like me, who obsess about the perfect way to place the pieces and obtain the highest scores. I suppose you could say that I am obsessed with Tetris in the same way that I am with Chess. But there are some key differences between a slow paced board game and a game where speed and instinct makes the difference rather than careful thought. I will explain why I play Tetris, why I like it so much, and also how you can improve at playing it if you know some mechanics that are not as obvious as they should be.

The 7 Deadly Blocks

You may think that Chess and Tetris are different games, but as it so happens, there is more of a connection between Tetris and Chess than you might notice at first glance. First, we need to talk about what the Tetris blocks are.

There are 7 blocks, shapes, or pieces. They each are associated with a single letter based on their appearance. These standard letters are commonly used in Tetris guides written by Tetris players just like me.

The colors used for the blocks are not relevant to their function, but they are standardized for most modern Tetris games published in the 21st century.

But take a second look and you will see that each of the blocks is in fact made of 4 connected squares.

Because they are made of 4 squares, they are called tetrominos. It is from this that Tetris gets its name. It is a combination of Tetra (the greek word for four) and Tennis (the racket sport).

It is because of the squared nature of these blocks that they fit perfectly into a grid of 10×20 squares. This is the standard size of the grid in all modern Tetris games. Some older versions, like the Game Boy edition had a height of 18 which is pretty close.

Because there are only 7 of them, each with a standard color, and each with a letter of the English alphabet to identify them, writing documentation and creating images for them is much easier than it is for other games involving random numbers which cannot be recorded as easily. It is not as simple as Chess notation, but there is certainly something to be said about the simplicity of Tetris that is what makes it so appealing.

It is at this point that similarities between Tetris and Chess end. If you are playing Chess, you want to take your time and think as long as you are allowed to before you move a piece. But if you play Tetris, speed is what is most important because the blocks are constantly falling. If you hesitate in Tetris for a minute, the blocks stack up to the top and then you lose.

Your best friend when playing competitive Tetris, or playing solo for high scores, is to memorize the 7 blocks and then be able to visualized in your mind how they will fit together. They can be freely rotated 90 degrees at a time before they are placed.

Classic vs Modern Tetris

Classic Tetris usually refers to the NES and Game Boy versions of the game from the 1980s. Back in those days, you really had no way of knowing what blocks were coming next. It was impossible to plan ahead. For many people, this is the type of Tetris they remember as a child and the only one they trust.

Modern Tetris is different. The 7 blocks come in random order, but they are also evenly distributed. What this means is that every 7 blocks that spawn at the time of the screen is guaranteed to contain one of each of the 7 blocks. Therefore, much of what I will be sharing in this book will apply to modern Tetris more than it does classical Tetris. However, there are some generic techniques that can apply to both.