Ms. Cox purchased her son a model of a Nintendo console referred to as a RetroN, which used the identical {hardware} as the unique Nintendo console, from a pawnshop, in addition to an outdated cathode-ray tube tv to assist him get began. In a given week, Willis mentioned, he performs about 20 hours of Tetris.

“I’m truly OK with it,” Ms. Cox, a highschool math trainer, mentioned. “He does different issues outdoors of enjoying Tetris, so it actually wasn’t that terribly tough to say OK. It was tougher to search out an outdated CRT TV than it was to say, ‘Yeah, we are able to do that for a bit bit.’”

For many years, avid gamers “beat” Tetris by hacking into the sport’s software program. However Willis, who within the final yr has turn into one of many nation’s prime Tetris gamers, is considered the primary to do it on the unique {hardware}.

“It’s by no means been achieved by a human earlier than,” mentioned Vince Clemente, the president of the Traditional Tetris World Championship, including, “It’s mainly one thing that everybody thought was unattainable till a few years in the past.”

Within the aggressive Tetris world, the article is usually to outscore your opponents reasonably than to outlast them. “Attempting for the crash” is a unique strategy fully. It’s an act of survival.

“The primary technique is simply enjoying as protected as you possibly can,” Willis mentioned.

It’s a bit extra difficult than that, mentioned David Macdonald, a online game content material creator and aggressive Tetris participant often known as aGameScout. Lately, prime gamers have begun utilizing the “rolling method,” a fast tapping technique utilizing a number of fingers as a substitute of only one or two. This innovation has modified what is feasible in aggressive Tetris. Extra prime gamers are “going for the crash,” versus merely accumulating as many factors as attainable earlier than being defeated by the sport.