It was Saturday, I had a chance to make the Bronze Bracket. At the moment, I was the #105 seeds, with the #112 seed being the Bronze Bracket cutoff. As long as 8 players in this final session don’t beat my Qualifying score of 521K. This last session was reserved for players that could not participate in the Qualifying sessions on Friday.
When I looked at the list of players, I concluded that 7 of the players were definitely going to outrank me: Koryan, Greentea, DanV, Alex Kerr (Kitaru), Nima, Ninja, and Vince Clemente.
Koryan and Greentea, who had flown from Japan to compete, were dominant players. Koryan was a 2019 CTWC Finalist and Greentea was a 2018 CTWC Semifinalist. Basically, they were going to outrank me for sure. They both had good chances of making the Top 48 Gold Bracket.
DanV, a UK player, was expected to make the Gold Bracket, just like the past 4 years.
Alex Kerr (Kitaru) was a 2-time CTWC Finalist.
Nima had a 982K qualifying score at the 2024 Jonas Cup.
Ninja had made the Silver Bracket in the previous year. This hypertapper was definitely going to beat my qualifying score.
Vince Clemente had a 707K qualifying score at the 2024 Jonas Cup, I expected him to make the Bronze bracket.
Basically, my only hope of making the Bronze Bracket is if nobody else passes me.
There were 2 players that had a good chance of passing me, Chris Bidwell and Sight. If either of them beat my score, my opportunity of making the Bronze Bracket were over.
Chris Bidwell’s Qualifying performances were hit and miss. In his most recent CTWC Regional Qualifying runs, he would score in the 400K and the low 500K. Although he did get 568K during his quals at the 2025 Waku Waku Tournament in Japan.
As for Sight, I don’t know how well he would do in his quals. His recent Tetris tournament appearance was the 2025 Waku Waku tournament, where he had a Qualifying score of 553K.
A New Player Arrives
I was sitting at the Stats team table, I was assisting Diane in double-checking the scores she was inputting on the Google Sheet.
aGameScout arrived to join the commentary table nearby, he told us that a new player had just arrived to the expo, it was a kid. The player’s name was Axel (Catvinity). He already knew who aGameScout was from watching his videos. Catvinity knew who I was as soon as I mentioned Tetris Interest.
The Final Qualifying Session Begins
Koryan, Greentea, DanV, and Alex Kerr (Kitaru) were on the main stage (CT1).
The crowd was hyped to see Koryan and Greentea return to CTWC since their last appearance in 2021. They had 5 maxouts and 3 maxouts in their 2021 CTWC Qualifying sessions, respectively. In other words, they had a good chance of making the Gold Bracket.
They had some rough RNG in some of their games that prevented them from getting maxouts. Koryan ended up finishing with 2 maxouts. Greentea finished with 3 maxouts, one short of making the Gold Bracket. They both were in the Silver Bracket.
DanV made it to the Gold Bracket with 11 maxouts.
Kitaru made it to the Silver Bracket with a 935K Qualifying Score.
The CT2 Stage featured Chris Bidwell, Nima, Sight, and Ninja.
Within the first 10 seconds, Chris Bidwell submits a 7-point score in honor of Jonas Neubauer’s achievement of being the 7-time Tetris World Champion.
In a tense moment, Chris Bidwell was approaching the Level 19 transition. He banks on a left well Tetris to have a smooth transition. But an 18-piece long bar drought causes the board to get messy at transition, causing him to top out with 489K.
In another game, Bidwell transitions smoothly with a 464K. He survives as long as possible, lining it out. He tops out at Level 22 with a 503K.
For another game, Bidwell transitions with a 469K. But he is in a situation where he has to dig down on his stack. He couldn’t do it, topping out with a score of 471K.
More than an hour into the session, Bidwell transitions with a 527K. He reaches Level 22 with a 556K score, sealing a spot in the Bronze Bracket.
Sight finished with a 771K score to make the Bronze Bracket.
Nima was participating at the Classic Tetris World Championship for the first time. He showed up to the 2023 and 2024 CTWC, but didn’t participate. But this time, he wanted to compete. He got a maxout to make it to the Silver Bracket.
Ninja had an impressive run. He had a 977K kicker, being one Tetris short of a maxout. An hour into the run, he got a maxout. With less than 4 minutes into the session, Ninja decides to play a game, starting at Level 9. When time runs out, players can’t start a new game, but they are allowed to continue playing their current game. When time ran out in the session, Ninja had no time to lose at that point.
Ninja was the last player still playing, which meant that all eyes were on him. When he got that second maxout, the small crowd cheered. Chris Bidwell, Sight, and Nima celebrated Ninja’s maxout, chanting “CT2!” The Twitch channel that was livestreaming their gameplay.
Ninja got 2 maxouts to get a high seeding rank in the Silver Bracket.
As for some of the other players, Vince Clemente finished with a 556,887 to make the Bronze Bracket.
Catvinity finished with a 489,602. He didn’t make it into the brackets, but I’m sure this is only the beginning of his Tetris journey.
My Qualifying Result
Once Sight beat my qualifying score, I knew I wasn’t going to make the Bronze Bracket. When scorecards were getting delivered to the stats table, Diane inputted them in the spreadsheet. From there, I watched my name drop down on the qualifying leaderboard until I got bumped off the Bronze Bracket. At that point, I was rooting for the players.
There were 112 spots total in the bracket. I finished in 114th place. But, I wasn’t close to making the Bronze Bracket. I needed a Tetris at Level 19 which was difficult for me to do. I need a lot of Level 19 practice if I want to make the Bronze Bracket at the 2026 CTWC.
I was kind of sad that I didn’t make the Bronze Bracket, but I was happy with my qualifying score. I would have felt worse if I was a few hundred points away. For now, I needed to focus on my next task, which was providing stats during the matches which was about to start soon.
