15-year-old Tetris superstar Alex Thach (Alex T) has broken at least six gaming world records through March and April this year. He smashed through the 10 million score milestone at least twice, culminating in a top score of over 16.7 million, thus winning thousands of dollars. Moreover, he slipped past Blue Scuti’s kill screen world record of reaching Level 157 with one line complete to achieve Level 157 with 6 lines complete.
aGameScout’s video above provides some backstory to Alex T’s feat, emphasizes this player’s achievements, and provides plenty of record-breaking Tetris action clips.
Even though only 15 years old, Alex T is a seasoned veteran of the Tetris scene. He made his name when he became the youngest person in history to max out the NES Tetris game scoreboard (scoring over 999,999) when he was just 11 years old. He was a proponent of Hypertapping, but his seemingly reluctant embracing of the Rolling technique means he didn’t really shine to his greatest potential until 2023/2024.
Hypertapping and Rolling refresher
Those interested in the dextrous techniques world record Tetris gamers have to master to compete, should take a look at our previous coverage of Blue Scuti becoming the first person to hit the Tetris kill screen and, in effect, ‘beat’ the game.
Starting from March this year, Alex T seemed to reach a sweet spot of performance. Perhaps he was inspired by the wide coverage of the first player to reach the Tetris kill screen 34 years after the game hit the NES. It could also be that he was energized by the $2,300 prize pot raised for the first streamer to record their achievement of a 10 million + score. Whatever the case, Alex T raised eyebrows when he shared a screenshot showing a 9.9 million score on March 11.
As Tetris enthusiasts will know, scaling the highest levels of the iconic game takes a lot of skill, technique, and nerve. To achieve a score of over 10 million, a player must take risks by trying to achieve Tetrises (4 lines eliminated in one move). Furthermore, building your score early on is imperative as this NES game famously glitches colors and behavior in levels over 100, with crashing levels starting from the mid-150s onwards.
In the video, you will see Alex T fight through levels where the falling bricks are often hard to see due to glitched game palettes in the higher levels. We see him do this several times, facing challenges like Greeeeeeeeen, and even meeting up with the glitched end screen dubbed ‘Summoning Satan.’
He used the modded Tetris Gym practice cart, which is quite widely used and accepted by the community, but that could give some naysayers ammunition to dispute the records. Unsatisfied by any potential tarnishing of his achievements, Alex T quickly repeated or exceeded some of his amazing gameplay feats using the original NES cart.
Summing up, aGameScout provides the above achievements chart for Alex T. Those interested can also keep an eye on the regularly updated online Tetris Leaderboard spreadsheet. Tetris champ Alex T also has his own Twitch streaming channel.