Been trying to gitgud at Tetris (on tetr.io); some random notes.
There's
this t-spin loop that I've been using a lot ever since I got matched up with someone spamming it in multiplayer. It's terrible for keypress efficiency (lots of soft drops), but it's so regular that I can just associate each piece's colour with a specific sequence of keys to hit and
actually look ahead. I used it in 40L to get a 40.x PB, and in Blitz to get on the leaderboards (peak rank #796, iirc).
It's mediocre in terms of score efficiency, but being able to plough through it at 2.5 pieces/sec makes up for it. The slow progress with the t-spin loop has been frustrating, though (my last high score was literally just t-spin loop + getting lucky with a perfect clear), and I've been looking into different scoring strategies, moving towards higher score efficiency but still without too much thinking.
Sort of analogous to transitioning from LBL to CFOP, if you think about it: it's harder, but it also has a higher ceiling. The difference is that in tetr.io's Blitz mode, when you're unsure, you can't just wait and think like you can with solving cubes; pieces fall from the top to the bottom in like 0.4 second at level 8. Pausing to recognise cases can be fatal. Exploiting the half-second lock delay to plan ahead is almost necessary. This doesn't really have an analogue in cubing, I guess. (edit: or like metronome solves where you DNF if you miss any beat at all)
I don't play multiplayer too often, but I did get up to SS rank (top 11%). It doesn't feel all that impressive, given that my technique is obviously garbage compared to the best players (exclusively using easily-countered openers; never paying attention to opponent's field; zero finesse knowledge; etc.)… which is kind of the same as with cubing? 12-13 seconds on 3×3×3 makes me much better than median, but I
know my technique is horrendous.
update (2021-08-14): My peak rank on the Blitz leaderboards is now #697. (Fallen by a few places since then.) Also looked at the higher ranks on the leaderboard and saw Jayden at #99, lol.
