This past weekend, seven-time Tetris world champion Jonas Neubauer would have been confident that title number eight was his.

After all, he has won every single Classic Tetris World Championship hosted in Portland, Oregon, and shows no signs of slowing down.

He hadn’t counted on 16-year-old Joseph Saelee putting on such an incredible showing, though, and pulling off one of the greatest upsets in modern-day Tetris history.

At least Jonas took losing in his stride, with this from Kotaku:

“The kid played with pure heart, the most clutch Tetris that we’ve seen from anyone,” Neubauer said after the dust had settled. “He just really had the ability, had the natural ability, and let it shine as bright as he could in his first tournament. [It’s] truly an honor to pass the torch to the new generation of Tetris players.”

The veteran stood on stage holding a silver trophy, his first since losing to Harry Hong in 2014, and the unlikely Saelee, tears still in his eyes, hoisted the gold to applause from the crowd at Sunday’s Retro Game Expo crowd.

You’re probably thinking who cares, and that’s fair enough, but look at the performance of this teenage underdog.

Skip ahead to the eight-minute mark, where Jonas bows out and Joseph storms to victory:

Come on, that’s pretty epic.

If you’re still with us, here’s some insight into Joseph’s technique:

Unlike many other top players, including Neubauer, Saelee uses hyper-tapping, a technique that requires players to press the D-pad rapidly at the the correct intervals in order to move Tetris pieces in different directions without losing speed. Normally players just hold down left or right on the D-pad. Saelee’s strategy on the other hand requires more than 10 button presses a second to be effective. It’s a riskier and more demanding style of play, but one that ended up paying off…

Saelee seemed equal parts ecstatic and in disbelief. “I don’t know how to feel. I’m still recovering. It’s absolutely a dream,” said the high school student, his smile showing the braces still on his teeth. “ I came into this tournament just to qualify, just to meet all these great people, and to win, that’s just amazing, I don’t know what to say.”

Having finally unseated the longstanding champion, Saelee has helped usher in a new period of excitement for the retro game. His meteoric rise will likely inspire others to jump into the soon-to-be 30 year old game. Meanwhile, Neubauer has his work cut out for him when the two return at next year’s Championship.

I’ll go out on a limb and say I’m backing Joseph.

I don’t know if it’s ever going to rival the Roger – Rafa rivalry, or Tiger and Phil Mickelson, but good luck to them both.

[source:kotaku]