pick me apart! please!

[jujube]

i agree with Spawn that you're probably not playing enough TOJ to be the top player in that game. i know i only picked up TOJ again a few days ago, but the only time i've seen you on was when you were playing Samaf or Hebo, or when you were playing a few warmup games.

and Hebo does everything well. she plays fast, tetrises, T-spins, combos, counters and downstacks. you just can't overpower a player like that. practicing will help of course, but you may never be able to beat her at will.

[Blink]

Thanks for the feedback guys, some that really stood out to me are that I'm not putting in enough time, that I'm playing too predictably, and that I should keep my stack lower.  I'll try to keep these in mind for next time, and yeah juju - hebo really is a very complete player.  
rosti - i wasnt trying to insult or make it seem like i was a bad player, I just know that sometimes I rely too much on speed while there are players who are more efficient than me even if they can't beat me.  I'd have to say shizi's advice sort of woke me up about things and he doesn't even play TOJ lol.

[caffeine]

I'm not sure predictability has any place in winning or losing. Tetris is more or less a game of perfect information, and it comes down mostly from what I can tell to who can deliver the most throughput.

[Blink]

I'm not sure predictability has any place in winning or losing. Tetris is more or less a game of perfect information, and it comes down mostly from what I can tell to who can deliver the most throughput.

yeah I think you're right that predictability might not matter, because hebo was also playing pretty predictably round after round I just didn't do anything about it.  What I did notice is that hebo's APM/LPM ratio was way way higher than mine, so I'm going to try to do what it takes to push out more adds in fewer lines - whether that means waiting for some of his garbage to come and then send right back to him, or by trying to t-spin alot more than usual.

[Rosti_LFC]

You can take out a player if they have a predictable style that you can exploit. For example, if a player likes to stack high near the start and then send three or four tetrises in quick succession, then you can perhaps rely on that to hit them hard when their stack is high.

[PedXing]

Sorry to necropost but I had some interesting thoughts on the most recent match (Oct. 7) between blink and hebo-mai.

While I was watching the match, I noticed that hebo-mai was constantly stacking for tetrises in the opening of almost every game. Watch her game starts and you'll see a quite noticeable trend. By my count, out of 46 total games played in the match, hebo opened with a tetris start 35 times. That's 76% of the games! Also, I'm pretty sure that she didn't attempt a combo opener even once in the match.

Could anyone tell me why hebo-mai would use a tetris start so often? I had always just considered a t-spin opener to be preferable because you could send more lines using fewer pieces. What are the benefits of using a tetris opener?

[Shizi]

i think because the other player uses tspin setup it sends the lines over earlier... so you use your tetris+ the garbage for a b2b

and its much easier to stack a tetris than stack around a tspin

this is based on my experience but i dont play that high level toj

[caffeine]

Of the 6000+ rated players I've seen, the overwhelming majority stick to a certain T-Spin opening. Hebo doesn't, so I take it he just hasn't committed to learning it. Old habits die hard. Luckily for hebo, his APM is so high that he doesn't seem to need to learn T-Spin openings.

[Shizi]

you dont become the best by simply sticking to "old habits"
hebo is definitely doing something right.. some people are just better at strategizing than others

[Blink]

i noticed the Tetris starts awhile back too, especially in Tetris DS.  Both samaf and hebo start with a Tetris on TDS like 90% of the time.  Since then I always start with a Tetris on TDS too.  I'll ask them why next time, I have a feeling it's because going for a Tetris can keep the field flat allowing you to more easily uncover the next hole compared to a T-spin start where you might have a bit messier field such as the incoming garbage hole being under 2 uncleared blocks when you're done.  Also stacking for a tetris at the beginning has a slim chance that when you take the incoming garbage, it is in the same column as your Tetris so you can quickly double tetris spike with a b2b.  That's just my guess, I'll ask them.

[caffeine]

I would also guess that they Tetris instead because

• Certain opening sequences can be very unfavorable for T-Spins, so they prefer not to take the risk.
• Soft drop is slower in TDS, so T-Spins at the bottom are less valuable than those done at the top of the field.

Despite this, I still feel strongly that it's better to open with T-Spins than with Tetrises in both games.

[jujube]

T-spin openings are pretty easy if you practice them, so maybe they like the challenge and randomness of stacking the best way for a tetris. they're strong enough that it probably doesn't matter how they start the game in TDS or TOJ. maybe if they played a game with completely random garbage and T-spin rewards, they would be forced to T-spin and send as much as possible at the start, to pressure the other player with garbage that isn't so easy to send back.

[ZZOmega]

On the third game of the 25-10 match, I noticed something peculiar. What's seemingly normal is that you both get the same order of tetriminos, and I used this to track who's TPM was higher. From about midway to the end of the match your TPM was much faster than his, but he still managed to win. I'm not familiar with TOJ or even Tetris Live for that matter, but from this information I can see that he's making better use of the tetriminos that he lays down.

Either that or you managed to stall for a split second while you had a high stack and he back to back tetrised or something.

I'm just speculating, I hope any of this helps!

EDIT: Also, I'm pretty sure that the garbage sent is opposite of the parts of the piece used to clear such lines. IE: A tetris would have 4 lines of garbage with each opening in the line right above another. I'm not sure if the placement of the holes is randomized or not though, to me it looked mirrored from his clear to your trash. Then again, I rarely could see anything due to your speed.

[PedXing]

On the third game of the 25-10 match, I noticed something peculiar. What's seemingly normal is that you both get the same order of tetriminos, and I used this to track who's TPM was higher. From about midway to the end of the match your TPM was much faster than his, but he still managed to win. I'm not familiar with TOJ or even Tetris Live for that matter, but from this information I can see that he's making better use of the tetriminos that he lays down.

Based on the stats chart blink shows in the beginning of the match:
Hebo: 47.6 LPM, 64.1 APM
Blink: 53.5 LPM, 70.0 APM
As of Oct 7. (That is, if I read it correctly; it was kinda blurry.)

Blink is faster, but you're right in saying hebo makes better use of her pieces.
Hebo's APM as a percentage of her LPM is 134.66%, compared to blink's 130.84%, meaning that hebo makes better use of her line clears and turn more line clears into adds (although its not that big of a difference).