It was the first day of the 2024 CTWC. That was the only thing happening at the expo, which meant there was no line to get in.
As I walked into the building, there was Eunha at the front desk. She immediately noticed me and gave me the CTWC wristband and the Expo wristband. You needed the wristbands to enter the expo, as convention center workers guarded the entrance.
Once again, I was in the CTWC area. This time, they set up everything. The 2 large screens showed the players who would be qualifying on stage. Normally, I would be watching this on a computer screen, but I was here with the crowd watching the live stream on the large screens.
Since I was early, I had time to explore the room. CRT TVs and NES consoles filled up the tables. This is where players would be sitting in their qualifying slots. I picked one of the stations and practiced some Level 19 starts.
Explanation of the Online Registration Process
A month before CTWC, online registrations opened up. In the registration form, players selected a 2-hour qualifying slot that they preferred. The organizer tried their best to give them that slot, or else they would assign them a different slot.
Three qualifying slots were available on Friday, while one qualifying slot was available on Saturday for players who could not show up on Friday.
I opted for the first slot because I wanted to get it over with and enjoy the rest of my day.
Pre-Qualifying Process
At around 10 AM, the line opened at the table at the CTWC area entrance. Players who registered lined up to get their CTWC name tag. There were about 20 people in line by the time I got there. Fortunately, I was able to get ahead in the line because I was part of the first qualifying slot.
When I reached the table, they had a box filled with blank CTWC name tags. From there, we would take out a name tag and write our names on it.
There were 2 other steps that I had to complete. Afterward, I walked over to another table covered with CTWC 2024 World Tour posters. There were also a few markers for the players to sign all 16 posters.
Posters were arranged in 8 columns of 2. I lined up to sign the posters, 1 column at a time. Once I finished signing the 2 posters in the column, I moved over to the next column so the next player could sign it. So this is what it is like for celebrities to go through the tedious process of signing a bunch of autographs.
After signing all the posters, I moved on to the final step, getting a professional photo taken. As I walked over to the photo shooting area, I saw a backdrop covered with tons of CTWC logos. aGameScout photographed the players. He took a good photo of me, which he knew I would use for my website.
Settling In
After taking my photo, it was time for me to pick a game station. Each station had a CRT TV and a NES console. With the exception of the players chosen to appear in the livestream, we could choose a station.
Once I chose a station, I sat down and put my name tag on the TV. I got my controller out and practiced a bit since qualifying did not start yet. I was practicing Level 19 starts, attempting to clear many lines without topping out.
How does Qualifying work?
They ranked us based on the number of maxouts we achieved. They used the highest non-maxout score (kicker) as a tiebreaker.
A Maxout is when a player reaches a score of 999,999, and the score display stops counting points beyond that. The Classic Tetris community sometimes calls this score 1 million points because it’s easier to say that.
Here is the Bracket breakdown
- Seeds 1-48 (48 players) advance to Gold Bracket
- Seeds 49-80 (32 players) advance to Silver Bracket
- Seeds 81-112 (32 players) advance to Bronze Bracket
The Gold Bracket is the Main event, where players compete to become the Tetris World Champion. The other brackets give other players a chance to participate in a Tetris tournament for a small cash prize.
Qualifying Is About To Start
For me, I was going for the Bronze Bracket. My Personal Best (PB) is 620K. I estimated that I needed a 600K score to get into the Bronze bracket. That was going to be tough for me, I had only reached the 600K score twice.
As I was practicing, I could hear the commentators on the main stage. They said that qualifying was about to start. A nearby judge was telling everyone to reset their console. The commentators counted it down, “3,2,1,Tetris!”. The qualifying slot has officially started. The 2-hour timer was ticking down. I could play as many games as I wanted during that time period.
I felt the tournament pressure from the very first game, becoming self-conscious about every move I made. Trying my best to avoid misdropping a piece. Whenever I misdropped a piece early in my game, I reset my game because my scoring potential had already decreased and I did not lose much time.
My first game ended with a 200K score, I was not happy with that score and did not submit it.
In the first 30 minutes, I finally had a decent game with a score of 312,740. It was not going to get me into the Bronze bracket, but I wanted to at least be in the qualifying leaderboard. So I raised my hand to let the judge know that I wanted to submit my score. They took a picture of the TV screen with their phone and let me know that I was good to play the next game.
I looked over at the large screen showing the players qualifying on the main stage, which showed a timer. The timer displayed 90 minutes remaining.
“Eyes Wide Open!”
While in the middle of one of my games, I heard someone exclaim “Eyes Wide Open!” It was a phrase that Alex T famously used when he was navigating through Glitched Colors on his journey to achieving World Records. I was thinking it was an Alex T fan that was reciting that phrase in their game.
When I finished that game, I looked across the table to see who it was. It turned out to be Alex T himself. Earlier, I did not recognize Alex T’s voice because I was very focused on my game.
There was Alex T practicing his game with the Rolling technique. People were crowding behind him, observing his game. Like the other players I met yesterday, it was surreal seeing Alex T in person.
My Qualifying Strategy
I continued on with my qualifying run with Level 18 starts. Been doing that for all of my games.
To get a high score in the game, players clear 4 rows at once with the long bar. This is called a ‘Tetris,’ and it gives you the most points. You can still burn lines (clearing singles, doubles, and triples), but you will get way less points for it. When the pieces reach the top of the screen (a topout), the game ends.
I opted to play it safe in my games by burning a lot of lines to keep my stack low while I waited for the long bar to get the Tetris. But I was still topping out at Level 18. It was frustrating that I was not surpassing my current 300K qualifying score.
The Struggles of Level 19 Speeds
I am not a roller like Blue Scuti, who used it to become the first player to crash NES Tetris. Instead, I use the old school method called DAS (Delayed Auto Shift), which involves holding down the buttons to move the pieces.
Level 19 is much more difficult than Level 18. The pieces fall much faster, which limits your ability to move pieces horizontally with the DAS technique. The timing of when you press the button has to be nearly perfect, otherwise you will not be able to get pieces all the way to the sides.
I’ve practiced Level 19 gameplay before the tournament, but I still struggle with its speed. I could not score Tetrises often, so I mainly focused on lining it out for the extra points.
The difficult part about Level 19 was dropping the pieces at the right spot before it touches the stack.
Here Comes Level 19
Eventually, I had a game where I surpassed my previous high score in my qualifying run. I was nearing the 400K mark, while having a few lines to clear before reaching Level 19.
(At Level 18 starts, you transition to Level 19 after clearing 130 lines. After that, the level increases every 10 lines.)
I kept my composure as I approached the transition. At this point in the game, I would need to line it out on Level 19, all the way to the Level 29 Killscreen if I wanted to get 500K points. That would give me a good chance at making the Bronze Bracket.
(At Level 29, the speed changes again where it becomes humanly impossible to survive. That is why it is called the Killscreen. It is possible to survive at this speed with the Rolling technique.)
While keeping my stack clean for the looming Level 19 transition, I set up a right well to get a Tetris. The long bar arrived and I got the Tetris which lowered my stack going into Level 19.
Surviving Level 19
Level 19 was here, it was time for me to clear as many lines as I could. At this point, the level increases after every 10 lines. Level 19-28 are the same speed. I never made it to the Level 29 Killscreen before, but this would be a good time to do so. Even if I did not get any more Tetrises, those extra points from burning lines mattered.
I made it to Level 20 with a 400K score. Unfortunately, the stack got too messy for me to clear and I topped out. The game ended with a score of 409,880. I raised my hand to get the score submitted.
Looking over at the large screen on the main stage, I saw that about an hour remained. My next few games were not good.
At about 30 minutes left, I noticed that I was very intense throughout the run, having held my controller up to my chest the entire run. Once I realized this, I lowered my controller and gave myself a moment to relax. It was too late at that point because time was running out and the pressure was really getting to me.
“Reset Now or Forever Hold Your Pace”
When there were less than 5 minutes left in the run, the judge announced to all of us that this would be the time to “Reset Now or Forever Hold Your Pace”. It got some laughs from the players. Ideally, players would want to score at least 500K by the Level 19 transition to get a Maxout before Level 29.
At about a minute left, I was not doing well in my current game so I reset my game. Once time ran out, finished up my game. The game would still count because I started it before time ran out. It did not matter though, because I was unable to beat my 400K score.
I was not too happy with the score, there was a very low chance of me getting into the Bronze bracket. Oh well.
Reflecting on my run, the mistake I made was playing too safely throughout my game. I ended up topping out early anyways. It was possible for me to get a 500K score at the Level 19 transition, if I had played more aggressively on Level 18. But, it was nice to see Alex T sitting right across from me.
My Qualifying Run Is Over. Now What?
Prior to the tournament, I had signed up to volunteer as part of the Stats Team. So, I walked over to the stats team table. Chris Foryst was on the laptop, inputting qualifying scores on a Google Sheet. In each row, he would type in the player’s name and their submitted scores. Through the magic of spreadsheets, the system automatically adjusts the qualifying leaderboard shown on the livestream whenever someone inputs a score.
After Chris Foryst inputted all the qualifying scores from the first slot, he sent me a link to the qualifying ranks via the Discord messaging app. I reviewed the qualifying ranks after the first slot and found myself ranked 33 out of 36. Needless to say, there was very little hope in making the Bronze bracket. So, I took a screenshot knowing that my name might disappear from the leaderboard when the qualifying round is over.
Once I finished that, Chris Bidwell came up to me and took a selfie photo of us. Later on, he posted the photo online to show that I was a real person. That’s what happens when you write about CTWC for years without showing up to one.
Meeting More People
As I was about to leave the Stats Team table, I saw CTWC commentator, Chris Tang. We have a lot of people named Chris in this community.
Chris Tang played a pivotal role in bringing in new viewers with his catchphrase “Boom! Tetris for Jeff!” at the 2016 Finals. I discovered CTWC when YouTube recommended that match. His enthusiastic commentary hooked me. I ended up binge watching all of the CTWC matches, and the rest was history for me. Years later, I finally saw him in person.
I waved at Chris Tang, not sure if he recognized me. Of course he recognized me from this website. He was thanking me for the behind the scenes work that I have done over the years. Needless to say, he was very happy that I was finally at my first CTWC event. Afterwards, I took a selfie with him.
Later on, I got to chat with Eliwa and Jakub. Both of these players had traveled all the way from Austria and Germany, respectively, to be here. We were talking about how we did in our qualifying run, since we were all in the first slot. After our conversation, we took a selfie together. I was not able to get a good photo of all of us, so Eliwa used her phone to take the selfie.
Hanging Out With Some Tetris Players
It was already past 1 PM, so I decided to leave the venue and walk to the Dog Haus that was located a few blocks away. On my way there, I saw a group of Tetris players outside a Starbucks. Some of those players included Doge, Hydrant, Redshurt, and Wallbant. I chatted with Doge about his interview on the Piece Dependency Podcast, where he described losing an online Tetris match. His girlfriend, Vivian, stated that she was not the “chick” that was mentioned in the podcast.
After our conversation, I asked the group if they knew which place they would get lunch at. They did not know so I mentioned that I was heading to the Dog Haus. We ended up going there. At the restaurant, I ordered the Downtown Dog and tater tots. (Always get the tater tots)
After we ordered our food, we sat at a table. Hydrant was telling me about how he was studying to become an architect. We talked about how architecture had changed from drawing on physical paper to using computers to draw out the design.
I ended up revealing that I was older than Hydrant when I mentioned doing physical drawings when I took a Drafting Architecture class in High School.
When discussing more about my background, I talked about how I was able to get a job in Digital Marketing by taking an online course. (Fun Fact: I created this website as part of a project for that course.)
When we got our food, some of us had the CTWC livestream on our phones. The 2nd slot of the qualifying round had already begun.
After lunch, we returned to the venue. Then, I began my volunteer task, which I talk about in Part 3.
