American 13-Year-Old Becomes First Human to Ever Beat Tetris

This is the biggest achievement of any American in decades.

RT:

13-year-old Willis Gibson from Oklahoma is believed to have become the first human being to have beaten the classic Nintendo video game Tetris, more than three decades after it was first released.

Gibson, who goes by the moniker ‘Blue Scuti’ online, posted a video of his record-breaking achievement online after taking just 38 minutes to reach level 157, before it crashed into its so-called “kill screen” – the de-facto conclusion to the game. His score read ‘999999.’

“Please crash,” Gibson says in the video as he completes another line of falling blocks, just before the game finally freezes. “Oh my God!” he exclaims. “Yes! I’m going to pass out. I can’t feel my hands.”

It was only considered possible to advance to level 29 until just a few years ago. Previously, only specially-designed artificial intelligence bots had been capable of forcing the game to its kill screen.

“It’s never been done by a human before,” said Vince Clemente, president of the Classic Tetris World Championship, according to the New York Times on Wednesday. “It’s basically something that everyone thought was impossible until a couple of years ago.”

Gibson, who maintains his Tetris skills without about 20 hours of practice a week, has become one of the United States’ top competitive players since he started playing just two years ago.

I advise young kids to get into Tetris.

It keeps the mind sharp.