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This is the first in a series of strategies to come. I will try to make these as useful as possible as I have yet to see a worthwhile tetrinet strategy page out there. I figured speed would be the best pick for the first strat. I know most of you are wondering, "How the hell can I get more speed out of my pitiful, measly little brain and fingers!?". This is how.
First of all, you can't go fast without using both rotating buttons. Period. If you try your little heart out you might be able to push 100-105ppm at the most. Given, this is all the speed you'll need to win (along with good building), but it's hardly as much fun as getting 120+ every time.. for me anyway. I can't stress this enough though. I constantly tell people to learn how to use both, but they never want to listen. LEARN IT DAMMIT%&*)(@#%$@!#
Ok, so now you know how to rotate any piece into the right position in 2 keypresses or less. Now you just have to shift it over to the column it belongs in, and press your drop button. "Look at me mom, I'm playing tetris!", you exclaim. But there's more to this if you want to go fast. The fastest way to do this is to combine the rotations and column shifts into one keystroke. This may sound confusing to some, so I'll give an example. You must have your buttons mapped out in a way so that you can tap either rotate button + either column shift button at the same time. Mine are mapped to the numpad like this:
Let's say I want to rotate the piece once to the right and shift it one column to the right, I would simply tap 8 and 6 simultaneously, then hit drop. Or say I want to rotate the piece twice to the left and shift it one column to the right, I would tap 5, then tap 5 and 6 simultaneously, then drop of course. Granted, this might take a little effort and time to learn (it took me a couple hours), but once mastered, it will give you a definite speed boost.
Oh, I nearly forgot, this doesn't work if you have to drop the piece in the leftmost or rightmost column. In a situation like this, I would tap the direction I have to rotate + the direction I have to shift, as many times as I have to rotate, then hold the shift button until it gets to the column. Fuck, that's confusing too. Here's an example: if I have to rotate it twice to the right and move it to the leftmost column, I would tap 8 + 4 twice and after the second tap, I would release 8 and keep holding 4 to slide it all the way over. Email me if you need any clarification on this.
Well, that does it for the finger dexterity part. There is slightly more to going fast than this, though. In my opinion, it's sort of like art. Anyone can be trained to draw well to a certain degree, but to be a truly amazing artist takes a certain amount of natural talent. Some people just don't have it in them. I could be wrong, though. Email me. I'd love to hear of any speed improvements you've experienced after learning these strategies.
Also, I find that when I'm playing at peak performance, tetrinet is the last thing on my mind. I'll be staring at my screen blankly tapping buttons and thinking of something totally non-tetrinet related. When I finally realize that I'm doing this, I stop playing good. I couldn't tell you how to go into this "zone", unfortunately, because I have no clue how your mind works. Try it sometime.
