In my third appearance at the Classic Tetris World Championship, I finally made it into one of the brackets.
Once aGameScout dropped out of the competition, I barely made it into the Bronze Bracket as the #112 seed.
I looked at the Bronze Bracket to find out who my opponent will be. Ninja was my opponent.
Before the matches began, Kingsman called on the Bronze Bracket competitors to appear on stage for a group photo.
It was a surreal moment to get up on stage with the other competitors. Walking towards the players that have already situated themselves for the photo shoot, it felt like I finally made it into a club that I’ve been trying to get into.
After that, we got off stage and signed the CTWC banner.
The process repeats for the Silver and Gold Bracket competitors.
Last Minute Practice
I did some Level 19 practice after I got myself situated in my game station for my first CTWC match.
Meanwhile, my opponent, Ninja, lost his controller and was trying to find it. He couldn’t find it so he grabbed a random controller and practiced some games so that he could get comfortable using the random controller.
Waiting For My Match To Begin
After a while, the referee came over to give Ninja and I a piece set that we were going to use for our first game.
The tournament uses a custom cartridge that has 9,999 different piece sets in it. (Piece sets are different each year) The referee uses a random number generator to determine which piece set we get. Players compete using the same piece sets to ensure competition fairness, something that CTWC started doing in 2016.
At this point, our practice session was over.
The first matches of the Gold, Silver, and Bronze Bracket were scheduled to start at the same time.
I was in the first group of matches of the Bronze Bracket. While Silver and Bronze Bracket matches were ready to start, there were some delays with the Gold Bracket.
Since I can’t practice anymore, I took in the scenery. I looked up at the camera to make sure it was pointed at me. I used the extra waiting time to calm myself down and loosen up before my first ever CTWC match.
At one point, players were chanting “hurry up!” as the Gold Bracket matches on the main stage continued to have delays.
Finally, the Gold Bracket matches were ready. I took a deep breath as the commentators on the main stage initiated the 10-second countdown.
And then, I started my first ever CTWC game as ChaoticHazel shouted “Buuuuucooooooo!”, an inside joke that stemmed from the early years of CTWC when Quaid and his friends rooted for Matt Buco.
This is it, my first game in a Best of 3 match. I found myself playing it a little safer because I didn’t want to top out early.
There was already an I-Piece drought in the first minute of the game, lasting 31 pieces. So playing it safe worked out. I had to burn 10 lines in the game before I finally got my first Tetris Line Clear (clearing 4 horizontal lines at once) at CTWC. My opponent, Ninja, had the same piece sequences, so he also had to deal with that same drought in the beginning.
When I got my first ever Tetris at a CTWC match, commentator, Chris Bidwell, shouted my name. In perfect timing, he just started introducing me to the viewers. Talking about how aGameScout dropped out so that I could get in the Bronze Bracket and how I was excited about being in the bracket.
As I continued playing, Bidwell mentioned that Ninja didn’t have much of a lead over me. That surprised me because I thought Ninja would have a much bigger lead with his playstyle being hypertapping. While I was using DAS (delayed auto shift), which is holding down the buttons to move the pieces.
Later on, I hear Bidwell mentioning that Ninja was in danger of topping out. I glance over at Ninja’s screen to see that pieces are stacked high on the board.
And then Bidwell exclaims, “Oh wait, Ninja tops out … Wingfryer is going to take Game #1, Let’s Go Wingfryer!”. I heard Ninja tell me that I beat him. I was still in disbelief so I asked if I could top out, which Bidwell said I could since I was already in the lead in score. (The player with the higher score wins the game.)
I was surprised to win my first ever CTWC game. But, I knew Ninja was still trying to get used to the random controller he had. I didn’t celebrate too hard because the match wasn’t over and I didn’t want the win to get too much into my head.
The referee came up to give us a new piece set to select and then Game 2 started.
I heard Bidwell read the Livestream chat on Twitch. A viewer and Tetris player, Morelando, wrote that winning this bracket would get me on Wheel of Fortune.
I’ve been a fan of Wheel of Fortune for a long time. I’ve auditioned for the show three times, still have not made it on the show.
During that commentary, I had misdropped an L-Piece by trying to get it all the way to the left with a high stack, and that caused me to have to burn a lot of lines. Looking back at that misdrop, I also could have done a delayed burn with that L-Piece. That would block the right well, but I could clear it out easily.
For Game 2, I continued to play it safe, banking on Ninja to top out early again. But that didn’t happen. We both made it to the Level 19 transition. I topped out shortly afterwards and lost, since Ninja had a large lead.
Ninja was relieved to get that win. He took a stretch break after the game. I took that opportunity to take a water break.
With Game 3, I decided to play a bit more aggressively so that I can keep up with Ninja. Unfortunately, that did not work out. I could have taken a triple to lower my stack, but opted to set up for a Tetris (4 line clear). As I had second thoughts that move, I misdropped a piece and started to panic. As my board spiraled out of control, I ended up blocking the right well which prevented me from lowering the stack. I topped out early and lost the game and match.
In hindsight, it was a mistake to not take the triple. I also made the mistake of second guessing myself when I had already passed on the triple and I could no longer backtrack. That caused me to get distracted and misdrop.
Despite my tournament run ending with an early topout, I was happy with my overall performance because I managed to get a win in my first ever CTWC game which would drastically bump me up in the final rankings.
My opponent, Ninja, would go on to win the Bronze Bracket using that random controller. (He found his controller the next day)
As for me, I finished in 100th place overall in the final standings. I am the Top 100 Tetris Player in the world.
After my elimination, I explored the expo and continued my volunteering task while I watched the action happening in the Gold Bracket.
