Meet The Two Teenage Brothers Dominating Tetris

“There were no young players in the Tetris scene before Joseph,” Michael Artiaga said. “Everyone who did play were mostly people who played in their childhood and then decided to participate in the tournament. Joseph was a new thing.”

Michael and Andy played separately on Nintendo consoles in their rooms. As they got better at the game, they shouted scores at each other. After losses, they went over what went wrong.

When the pandemic hit, they discovered more people playing Tetris competitively on Twitch and set their sights on the 2020 championships in December.

They qualified with six 1-million-point games apiece. Out of 163 competitors in the 2020 championships, they ended up squaring off in the title match, held remotely because of the pandemic. Randall Artiaga, who normally watches competitions from one of the brothers’ rooms, was forced out of impartiality to follow on Twitch in his home office, yelling scores to his wife, Van, who was too nervous to watch at all.

The best-of-five championship series came down to the final game, which was neck-and-neck until they simultaneously reached the “kill screen,” Level 29, the fastest achievable stage. A small miscue by Andy — failing to slide a long bar over far enough to clear the lines — ended it.

“A lot of people try to play it safe, but not Dog,” Andy said. “He can be super high in his stack but he’s still stacking up. He’s waiting for the long bar. And when he does that, he can score so much you just can’t keep up.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/28/sports/tetris-game.html