I woke up early and headed to the bus stop. I sat next to DocPi, Mari, and Wylie, who were in the same bus that I took.
We walked to the SoCal Gaming Expo after getting off the bus. On our way there, we bumped into Coal who was hanging out at the Starbucks near the expo. We talked about Coal’s performance at the tournament. Coal said that it was his best performance at the Classic Tetris World Championship. Ultimately, Coal was eliminated by a very good player.
We all entered the venue and saved our seats in the front row. Eventually, the tournament day started with a Top 16 group photo, followed by the Tetris Anthem.
I was doing stats work for the CT2 side of the main stage during Round 2, which went by smoothly because I knew what to do at that point.
Once Round 2 was finished, I was done with volunteering duties for the rest of the tournament.
Lifetime Achievement Awards
I returned to the front row for the Top 8 matches. Before the Quarterfinals began, Vince Clemente gave a speech acknowledging the volunteers that work behind the scenes for this tournament. Just like last year, there were 2 Lifetime Achievement Awards given this year. When Vince was describing this year’s winner of the Lifetime Achievement Awards, I couldn’t figure it out until he announced their name; which was a first for me.
Barrett (3arrett) and Steve Deluca were this year’s Lifetime Achievement Award winners. Check out the video of the moment, instead of having me describe what happened.
Quarterfinals
The first pair of Quarterfinal matches were Myles vs Alex T and Sidnev vs Dog. Both matches went to a Game 5 Decider.
Throughout the match, Sidnev won the first 2 games, while Dog won the next 2 games to stay in the tournament. In Game 5, a 26-piece Long Bar drought caused Sidnev’s board to be messy going into Level 29, causing her to top out. Dog kept his board clean going into Level 29, knowing he didn’t need to play aggressively. He eventually completed the chasedown to win the match.
During that exciting game, Myles also had a messy board going into Level 29 and topped out shortly afterwards, giving Alex T the win. Alex T and Dog advanced to the Semifinals where they would face each other.
Sitting in the front row, I saw that Sidnev was grieving from the loss. Dog was consoling her. The commentators had the audience cheering for Sidnev after the match. Later on, Sidnev went backstage.
The next pair of Quarterfinals matches were Blue Scuti vs Huff and Tugi vs Meme.
Blue Scuti defeated Huff, while Meme defeated Tugi. It was going to be Meme vs Blue Scuti in the Semifinals.
In Tugi’s elimination interview, Kingsman asked Tugi about his thoughts on the outcome of the new qualifying format. Tugi said it was an okay format this year and that it did a good job determining the top seeding ranks. He mentioned that the qualifying format made the qualifying round more entertaining to watch, which I agree with. Tugi did mention that to be fair, he can’t think of a new qualifying format on the top of his head.
Sidnev was the last Quarterfinalist to be interviewed, where Kingsman asked about her thoughts on her tournament performance. Sidnev said that she played very well, but it wasn’t meant to be ultimately. She mentioned that she had been grinding the game for the last 3 months and was in it to win it all. Sidnev noted that it was a devastating loss to lead the match 2-0, only to lose the next 3 games to lose the match. She said she plans to continue grinding the game and hopes to return to the tournament next year.
After the interview, Chris Tang talked about how there will always be next year for players that didn’t perform well at this tournament. (It was the same thing that Chris and I talked about the previous day.) James Chen and Sharky also joined in on the conversation.
James Chen, Chris Tang, and Sharky were commentating the entire Final 8 matches. I was sitting in the front row for the matches and noticed that Sharky had a laptop open that showed the gameplay with a bunch of extra real-time game stats on there. It was all made possible thanks to NestrisChamps.
Semifinals With A Downer Ending
Before the Semifinals started, Kingsman interviewed the Bronze and Silver Bracket winners, Ninja and Greentea. Check out the interview here, featuring an appearance from Chaotic Hazel.
The first Semifinals match was Dog vs Alex T. I was excited for this match because it was the first CTWC match to have 2 Tetris Champions competing against each other. Both players are 2-time Tetris World Champions.
Karin Cox (Blue Scuti’s Mom) was sitting behind me. Before the match began, aGameScout came out from backstage and asked Karin if she knew anyone in the venue that was a doctor. None of us knew anyone in the building that was a doctor. It was clear that Alex T was still dealing with hand pain. The organizers were trying to figure out what to do about it.
Despite the wrist pain, Alex T won the first game with a score of 1,577,940. There was a break after the first game as Alex eases his wrist pain with an ice pack.
I was sitting next to DMJ. During the break, we were talking about the rolling technique. DMJ said that he rolls using the index finger first. Some other players roll with their pinky first (pinky to thumb), which creates a bit more wrist movement.
Eventually, the second game started. Dog won that game, tying the match, 1-1. Alex T applied an ice pack to his wrist after the game.
Game 3 started shortly afterwards. Alex T topped out early, giving Dog an easy win. It became very clear that Alex’s wrist was hurting badly. Alex went backstage to give himself some rest and decide whether he wanted to continue with the match.
During the break, Karin Cox was talking to DMJ and me about how the players’ parents have been sharing notes among each other about the side effects that players had when using the rolling technique.
Meanwhile, commentators were reading out sponsorships until Sharky received an update from production. Sharky revealed that Alex T had decided to forfeit the match due to hand pain.
I was not surprised by Alex’s decision. In my opinion, it was a good decision for him to forfeit because there was a good chance that the wrist injury would get worse if he continued playing in the tournament. I was sad that the match had to end this way.
Alex T returned to the stage for the elimination interview with Kingsman. He was met with applause by the audience. He flexed on stage, which was met with cheering from the audience.
Alex recapped his overall performance at this year’s tournament. Despite being eliminated by Dog, Alex said that he hoped that Dog would win and that he didn’t want his rival, Blue Scuti, to win. (Alex T had defeated Blue Scuti at this year’s Classic Tetris Monthly: Mega Masters Finals, which happened about a week ago.)
Kingsman gave him the floor to make final remarks. At the end, Kingsman had everyone stand up to acknowledge him. We all applauded for the 2-time World Champion. Despite having to forfeit the match, we still had a lot of respect for him.
The next Semifinals match was Meme vs Blue Scuti. Meme was last year’s Runner-up and Blue Scuti had finished in the Semifinals twice.
During the match, I was still processing what happened with Alex T. I was still sad about how that last match ended. It was a good thing it didn’t happen in the Finals.
Anyways, back to the match. An interesting fact about this Semifinals match is that Meme and Blue Scuti had played 13 matches against each other in different Tetris tournaments. Blue Scuti had defeated Meme in all of those matches. The stats were favoring Blue Scuti to win this match.
But, Meme ended up defeating Blue Scuti in the match, 3-1, to make it back to the Finals again. Much to the surprise of Meme.
Finals – Dog vs Meme
Before the Finals began, Ava introduced the Padless Controller. As stated in the name, the controller doesn’t use pads under the buttons like the original NES controller. Pads wear out overtime which causes players to perform badly. You can find out more on their website, gopadless.com.
Ava also revealed that the finalists were going to receive padless controllers for making it into the Finals.
And then the Finals started. The crowd was hyped for the last match of the tournament. We were booming every Tetris, a callback to when Chris Tang would say “Boom! Tetris for [Name]”. It was fun to hear the “Booms”, reminding me of how I got involved in the Classic Tetris scene. The booms died off when the players reached the Level 19 transition.
Throughout the match, players traded wins back and forth and it came down to a Game 5 Decider. We were hyped for the last game. The crowd screamed “Boom!” after every Tetris. Both players made it to the Level 29 Killscreen. Meme topped out at Level 37, and Dog successfully chased down Meme’s score to win the game and become the 3-time Tetris World Champion. The crowd was hyped and we all stood around the stage.
Kingsman came up on stage to interview Meme first. Meme talked about how she was surprised to make it back into the Finals when the competition has gotten tougher since last year’s tournament. She talked about how her confidence led her to do very well in this tournament.
Afterwards, Kingsman brought up how the Tetris community has made an impact on Meme’s life. He asked Meme how that’s been going since last year. It was nice to hear Meme say the same thing as last year. Particularly the part where she grew up as a loner and ended up making friends in the Classic Tetris community.
Finally, Meme collected her 2nd Place trophy.
And then, it was time to interview Dog, the 2026 Tetris World Champion. Dog revealed that he was planning to make this his last tournament, since this was his 7th time at CTWC. He didn’t come into this tournament expecting to win it all.
At the end of the interview, Kingsman invited Dog’s family on stage to give Dog the Golden J-Piece Trophy. And then Kingsman invited some of his friends on stage to celebrate the win.
With the tournament over, aGameScout was doing photo shoots with Dog and Meme posing with their trophies.
Some people were helping with packing up the CTWC equipment.
As things were mostly cleared out, I walked to the Afterparty.
CTWC Afterparty
The Afterparty was at Urban Pocha, a Korean Restaurant. By the time I got there, most of the players had arrived.
While I was waiting for my food, Danny Cox had a handheld Tetris console that was shaped like a McNugget. They were sold at McDonald’s in China. I don’t know how Danny acquired one.
Danny had me play a game on the Tetris McNugget console. He told me that he was going to give the console to the player that gets the highest score. I don’t remember what my score was, but I know I didn’t get the highest score because I didn’t get the console. I don’t know who got the highest score.
I chatted with Blue Scuti’s grandparents. I also talked to Sanzel (TetrisRanger’s Wife) about plans on attending future CTWC Regionals. And then I brought up I’ve been auditioning to be on Wheel of Fortune, which I had auditioned for three times.
I got the Honey Garlic Fried Chicken. It was good, but very messy to eat because there was a lot of sauce on the chicken. I definitely had to wash my hands after I was done eating. Next year, I will go for something less messy if the afterparty is at the same place.
After I finished eating, I chatted with a few people. I talked to Ninja about our Bronze Bracket performance. Later on, he let me know that he wasn’t going to be able to go to this year’s Jonas Cup due to scheduling conflicts. I let him know that I might go to this year’s CTWC SoCal Regional in Irvine.
I chatted with 666_Tim, who had traveled from the United Kingdom to compete at CTWC. He was thanking me for the behind the scenes work that I do. We talked about how we did in the tournament. It never fully sank in with me the impact I have with players around the world.
Here are some photos at the Afterparty with a room full of Tetris players.
Of course, with every CTWC Afterparty, you got to have NES stations for casual play and casual matches.
And for the players that play Modern Tetris, there’s a PC setup for Tetris The Grand Master 4 (TGM4).
I got a selfie with the Japanese players, such as 2018 Semifinalist, Greentea. They had traveled from Japan to be here, it was an honor to meet them. They all knew who I was and knew about this website. Not that it was a big surprise, but it still feels weird to know that international players are visiting my website.
As I explored the restaurant, I saw Chaotic Hazel and Zrobot playing some type of piano tile game on the phone. It’s a music rhythm game where you have to tap the tiles at the right time as they scroll down on the screen, like “Guitar Hero”, “Rock Band”, and “Taiko no Tatsujin”. I also got a selfie with Zrobot and Chaotic Hazel.
As it was getting late at night, I took in the scenery of all the Tetris players from around the world just casually hanging out. I knew I would have to wait another year before I see everyone in-person again at the Classic Tetris World Championship.
I left the venue and called an Uber to take me home. As I waited for my uber, I was on my phone looking at the Twitch chat during the moment when Alex T forfeited the match. There was a lot of support for him at the venue, it was cool to see the support he was getting in the livestream chat.
Eventually, my Uber arrived and I went home and went to sleep. With the tournament over and the players heading back home, I continued with my regular life at home.
Reflecting On My Experience At 2026 Classic Tetris World Championship
Overall, I really enjoyed being at the tournament this year. It was amazing to finally compete in my first CTWC match. I was surprised to even get a win in my match, even if it was because my opponent lost his controller.
Beyond my experience as a competitor, I enjoyed hanging out with the Classic Tetris community in-person. It’s always amazing to chat with people that I’ve interacted with many times online.
It’s amazing to be famous within the Tetris community when I am at these events, where I sign autographs on occasion and I get approached by players that know about this website. And then outside of that, I get to live a regular life where strangers don’t know who I am.
I’m glad to be in a community that I enjoy and where people respect me for who I am.
