Revenge of the Blockheads

Sun Feb 15 2026

Tetris was invented in 1985, it came out on the NES in 1989, but the best way to play was only discovered in 2021.1 Previously, players would just try to tap the buttons really fast (“hypertapping”), until a 15-year-old named Christopher “CheeZ” Martinez realized that you could actually press the buttons faster if you roll your fingers across the back of the controller (“rolling”). CheeZ went on to set world records using his technique, but he wasn’t on top for long. Other players soon perfected their rolls, and CheeZ lost in a first-round upset at the 2022 Classic Tetris World Championship to another “roller”, a 48th-seed named BirbWizard.

I love this because it shows how low-hanging discoveries can just sit there for decades without anyone seeing them, even when thousands of dollars are on the line. (Seriously—the first place finisher in the 2024 championships won $10k.) People spent 40 years trying to tap buttons faster without ever realizing they should be tapping the other side of the controller instead.

But I also hate this, because: