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LST stacking is very score efficient in Tetris but also brutally hard to pull off. There is no real pattern to rely on like there is in ST Stacking. There also are not very many resources on LST stacking by comparison to other openings or playing styles. At the time of this writing, the Hard Drop wiki lacks a page on LST stacking. The best guide is currently written in Korean.

https://hse30.tistory.com/735

As part of the post, this video was included which inspired me to make a serious attempt at LST stacking.

Because the goal is to be able to do LST stacking using my own game Chaste Tris, I needed a special opening which is possible even with an early T piece. In my game the order of every bag is always ITZJOLS. Because of this, some of the TKI openings simply don’t work. However, a reversed form of TKI Flat Top does work! I have been studying it because it seems some variation of TKI opening is always used to start LST stacking.

https://harddrop.com/wiki/Tki#Flat_Top_variation

My goal is the highest possible score. This means that I need every single T block to be able to achieve a T Spin Double.

Below is a video of my best record so far using LST Stacking in Chaste Tris.

What makes LST particularly difficult compared to ST is that when I am ST stacking, if I get a T block before I have a place to spin it then I simply place it on the left side stack. But when I’m doing LST stacking the goal is that every single T block will be used. This would not work for ST Stacking because it requires building the stack high enough to even set things up. But LST requires all kinds of madness as you can see from both of the videos I have linked in this post.

I just recently discovered a new way of achieving a Mechanical T Spin Double loop in Tetris. So far I have 4 videos which showcase how this can be achieved. In fact copying the videos exactly is the most reliable way to do it. It requires some luck as to what blocks come before other but if you get past the beginning stages it is transformed into the Mechanical TSD except with no gaps and a longer back to back chain scoring more points and sending more garbage than even a traditional Mech TSD. Additionally, not one single T piece is wasted. Each one is used to score a T Spin Double and it’s possible to even get 40 lines using only T Spin Doubles if you really try hard.

It is based on the reliable TSD opener but the fact that it takes certain block order to work makes it actually unreliable in vs mode. But in single player modes you can just keep restarting until you luck out.

This I just have to say. I am disgusted by people who judge homeless people and assume they are only lazy drug addicts and say “Why can’t they just get a job?”.

As a hard-working person who can’t pay rent anymore and losing my apartment I’ve lived in for 3 years, I know that many homeless people probably are responsible hard working people who still can’t afford to pay, rent, bills, and food.

If you look at renting a one bedroom apartment anywhere in Lee’s Summit or Independence you’ll see that it’s rare to even find something for less than $1000 a month. To put things in perspective, my monthly net income is $1200 a month on average because Hy-Vee has kept me part time for many years. I had been paying $785 a month this past year but then with utility bills and food being high priced as well, my income was less than what I was spending. My settlement money is gone, my 401k from my old job that fired me after my knee injury is gone, and I have to be out of my apartment before October 17.

If a hard-working person like me who is a single virgin and doesn’t even have a car or the expenses that go along with that can’t make it in this stupid economy, then how can anyone else, especially those with kids and cars? We are all doomed sooner or later because it’s only getting worse.

If you’re homeless, it doesn’t mean that it’s your fault. It doesn’t always stem from bad choices. A lot of it is that everything is too expensive, and most companies hire only part time employees so that they don’t have to pay health insurance or other benefits. Additionally, once someone is homeless, it becomes impossible for them to apply for a job because they don’t have a mailing address, a phone, or a place to take a shower and be clean and presentable for a job.

The society we live in is one that creates homeless people by making everything more expensive while reducing the money people make at the same time. And then the government has the nerve to tax us on top of it which is just making politicians rich and helping no one.

When I first moved to my apartment in Independence on September 30th 2019. I had a full time warehouse job. I was able to afford my rent and bills back then and even save a little bit each month. But when the knee injury happened and then I was about to be fired because my body could no longer do the job and make quota, I resigned to go back to Hy-Vee. Only I went to work at the Independence #2 Hy-Vee because it was close to where I lived. I have done fairly well there but because I have been stuck with under 30 hours as a part timer, I ended up with less and less money each month.

I had been hoping to get full time work with Hy-Vee and be able to afford things. I also had hoped that my former roommate River would have worked and helped me pay rent. But no, I worked to the best of my ability but had less money each month. I was able to still pay the rent but only because of settlement money and withdrawing my 401k from my previous job. Now the money is out, the rent has gone up, my lease expires in October, and I am running out of time for a miracle to happen. Even if Hy-Vee does in fact give me more hours at this point, it may be too late. The rent is going to go up even more and I may still not be able to renew it because I have to have 3 times the monthly rent amount in gross income to be allowed to renew the lease. I’m currently below and I doubt I will be able to keep this apartment. Rent is just too expensive. Renting an apartment anywhere in Independence Missouri is usually $800 to $1000 a month. I have searched online quite a bit and the irrefutable fact is that it’s too expensive to live when all I want is a safe place to live where I can eat, sleep, take a shower, and try to relax when I am on my own time.

At this point I am very angry because being a hardworking honest person does NOT reward a person in this economy. I have no savings, no retirement fund, a complete joke of insurance, and soon I won’t even have my own home.

The good news is, I probably will not end up out on the street. I will probably either have to go back to stay with my mom for awhile or find somebody in this area with a spare room or basement I can rent so that I can still walk to work. I do absolutely love my job in Hy-Vee Floral but I fear I may have to lose it if I am not living in a location where I can consistently walk to work.

But that’s not the worst of it. The worst thing about my situation is the judgement from other people who judge the people who are poor or homeless. People have judged me for years for not having a car. What they don’t realize is that even my own mother doesn’t have a car. We have been poor the entire time I was growing up.

People assume that if someone doesn’t have enough money for their rent, bills, food, etc. that it’s their fault or that they must be doing something wrong. Additionally there is great criticism of people who still live with their parents. I lived with my mom until I was 33 years old and it was purely financial reasons that I had to. I temporarily had a better situation when Brillient hired me for the full time job but now that I lost it, I am back where I started.

But not entirely where I started. I am 3 years older, a bit more experienced and wiser, and at least I was able to have my orchiectomy and be out of physical pain because of the insurance I used to have in 2020 before I lost my job.

But the purpose of this post is not for anyone to feel sorry for me. I know I will survive and find happiness somehow. A valuable skill that I still very much need to learn is how to find joy even when times are bad and to be content even though I do not have control over my financial life or living situation. I’ve done about as well as anyone could in my situation. I’ll survive one way or another, just not the way I would have preferred.

There is also the fact that it would be good to spend more time with my mom while she is still alive. This could be twisted into a good thing if I follow the principle of the “Paradoxical Pony Power of Positive Perspective” that Honesty the unicorn taught me. There is always good even in bad situations just as there is bad in good situations.

“The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It is a very mean and nasty place It will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me or nobody is going to hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard you hit, it is about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward, how much can you take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done!” – Rocky Balboa