PC after 8 lines (was: C-Spin with first T placed vertically?) Options

[Okey_Dokey]

I've been thinking about TSD PCs lately too, but instead of 2 TSD 8/6 row PCs, I've been doing TSD 6 row PCs. 6 row PCs are usually hard, as you have to change your solution based on the first 2 pieces of the next bag, but not requiring a TSD in that bag allows you to PC somewhat consistently.

Here's the setup [Albatross continuation].

8 lines or gtfo

I like the frames 3 to 7 in your fumen. When you place L,J,O and I in the specific way, there's a way to place S, Z and T to leave a hole in the shape of every piece but T (O shape also works if you place T afterwards). PC chance is 96.8 % for that case.

I personally don't like TSD -> 6 lines PC because I limit my amount of previews so I don't know which piece will come first/second in third bag. However, TSD -> 6 lines is powerful (probably more powerful than 2 x TSD -> 8 lines). There's a Japanese player called Gannbattaa who popularized TKI castle top -> 6 lines (see Galactoid's ultra advanced guide or this post) by noonuus. 6 lines has the advantage over 8 lines that you don't have to place a third T piece (odd number of T pieces is bad for PC because you need that odd clear). I think what makes TSD -> 6 lines PC so powerful is that you can counter most first attacks with the TSD (the TSD cancels every one bag openener as well as the standard PC / grace system PC) and that you can make the PC before garbage is entered in your playfield: You need 15 pieces for the PC and the opponent needs 13 or 14 pieces to send off the second bag's attack. Maybe, its best counter is something like the DT cannon (or maybe C-Spin) where the first attack comes so late that it can't be countered by the PC player's TSD, but still early enough (11 pieces or so) to insert garbage before the PC is competed.

Perhaps you could sort them by the least amount of solutions they have? A setup with a 90% PC and 10 solutions is arguably better than a 100% PC and 100 solutions.

I won't change sorting. I sorted all the first bags primarily by the best PC chance you can reach by placing the second bag, and secondarily by the amount of playfields you could reach after 2 bags that pass a certain threshold. I introduced the "first 3 placed pieces" PC chances as a mean to identify how easy it is to spot a PC: at the end of the second bag, you look at the first 4 pieces of the third bag, and try to select 3 of them that guarantee a PC no matter how the sequence is continued. I can do that in practise. "First 4 placed pieces" is already to difficult for me.

[Okey_Dokey]

A post about the 4 setups that seem to be best according to the 2 x TSD -> PC output. The setups have in common that they need an early I piece and a relatively early O piece. The Fumen lists some percentages which are the chances to place the pieces in the shown way (they are NOT the PC chances). For the first bag, the number in brackets means the chances, if you consider stacking the mirrored setup as well. If there's a number in brackets for the second bag, it means that you can theoretically make a line clear with an I piece before the T-Spin Double, in that case you lose the back-to-back bonus but chances to build this stack are increased. When I speak about "basic", I exclude solutions where you place a piece after the T piece (e.g. the I piece I was speaking about earlier). I include them for "extra" though.

setup from pwn's finder / black tea cannon

Note that the setups in frames 9 to 11 don't have a 100 % PC rate (but still > 99 %).


The following percentages refer to the Fumen above:
all 6 lines basic: 33.33 %
all 6 lines extra: 43.41 % (57.14 %)
all 8 lines basic: 77.66 %
all 8 lines extra: 80.56 %
all basic ones (6+8): 81.43 %
all extra ones (6+8): 83.29 % (84.01 %)

ajanba TKI


all 6 lines basic: 60.71 %
all 6 lines extra: 62.62 % (65.28 %)
all 8 lines basic: 71.03 %
all 8 lines extra: 71.03 %
all basic ones (6+8): 79.21 %
all extra ones (6+8): 79.40 % (79.88 %)

TKI 3 fonzie variation


all 6 lines basic: 60.16 %
all 6 lines extra: 62.98 % (64.48 %)
all 8 lines basic: 45.16 %
all 8 lines extra: 47.58 % (49.48 %)
all basic ones (6+8): 68.53 %
all extra ones (6+8): 69.33 % (70.52 %)

TKI 3 castle top variation


all 6 lines basic: 43.33 %
all 6 lines extra: 47.54 %
all 8 lines basic: 39.56 %
all 8 lines extra: 39.56 %
all basic ones (6+8): 63.25 %
all extra ones (6+8): 66.63 %

Note that TKI 3 castle top has the highest chances of working in the first bag. However, if it works, it also works at least one of the other 3 setups.

I think I will make a post tomorrow about a few other noteworthy 2 x TSD -> PC setups but it won't be as detailed.

[Okey_Dokey]

Some other 2 x TSD -> PC setups. Again, percentages are the chances to stack the bags in the shown ways and NOT the PC rates. For 8 lines PC rates, read the texts. For 6 lines PC rates, read the remark at the end of this post.

Air TSD #1

That's the best performing setup where the bottom row is left empty in the first bag (platform TSD). For the first bag, you need an early O & J and a rather early I piece. Thus, sadly it's not really useful, as you can usually stack better performing setups (e.g. TKI 3) in this case. There's a 6 lines solution and the first shown 8 lines solution has 100 % PC rate, and the last 2 solutions about 98.5 %.



Air TSD #2

Another setup where the bottom row is left empty in the first bag. This only has a rather unlikely 6 lines solution, and the 8 solutions have rather low PC rates: it's about 98.5 % for the first one; and for the last 2 ones 97.7 % and 97.2 % respectively. On the plus side: One of the 3 shown 8 lines solutions is stackable in 86.71 % of the cases. Plus, you just need an early Z & O and a rather early I piece. Thus, it might be useful for bad bags. Note that Albatross works for similar bags and there's a good way to get 1 x TSD -> 6 lines PC with Albatross as Aitch has shown. Other setups for O & Z starts: Mr. T-Spin's STD, Hachispin, Joystick.



Vertical I piece

This is the only way to get a non-platform TSD with the first bag (ok, you can place the I piece on the other side but that's usually worse regarding PCs). This setup offers a 6 lines solution, and another one if you place an O piece afterwards. However, the the PC rates for the best 8 lines solutions are rather underwhelming: 96.4 % to 93.3 %. The setup is rather unique in its requirements: You need early L & J pieces and a rather early S piece. Other setups for L & J starts: DT Cannon, MKO Stacking.



For the sake of completeness the one with the I piece on the other side. That's basically the setup you get, if you place the O piece on the other snake piece (just the mirrored version of that). Here, it's impossible to get a 6 lines PC after 2 T-Spins. If you place T piece last in the second bag, you get similar PC rates as the ones mentioned above: 95.7 % to 93.7 % (but the stacking chances are higher). However, the situation is better, if you can place another piece after T: In this case you can get 99.6 % to 97.0 %



Very high 6 lines stacking chances

Those 2 setups really shine in stacking 2 x TSD -> 6 lines PC. It's a 77.78 % chance that you can use one of those 2 solutions (one of them places an O piece above T). You may have to use softdrop a lot though. The 8 lines setups aren't that nice though: The best 2 PC rates you get are 95.8 and 91.6 % respectively (in case of the 95.8 % you have a nice split though, so easier to spot than usual). That chance can be increased a little if placing one piece after T: It's 97.1 % and 94.2 % in that case.



High 8 lines stacking chances

This setup doesn't offer any way to achieve a 2 x TSD -> 6 lines PC. However, chances for 8 lines PC are decent. The first 2 solutions have 100 % PC rate, the others around 99.0 %. Around 85 % of all second bags can be stacked in at least one of the shown 5 ways.



Like TKI 3 Flat Top but not

For the lolz. The O piece is shifted towards the left side. This makes a 6 lines PC possible with T placed last. You have a 55.24 % chance to stack at least one of the 6 lines solutions. However, this setup is horrible otherwise. Barely any good spots for setting up a T slot. The best solution with T coming last has only 80 % PC rate (it's 94.3 % if you can place a L after T, that's the only 8 lines solution I've included in this Fumen).



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A remark to round off all those 2 x TSD -> 6 lines PC setups: There's also a chance to substitute the T-Spin Double with a T-Spin Single. This can increase the PC chance a lot, assuming you don't know which pieces you get at the start of the third bag. Let's say you have to play with 1 preview for whatever reason. In that case after stacking one of those "6 lines solutions" the chance for a Perfect Clear is somewhere between 28.57 % and 52.38 %. The best case is when there's a hole in the shape of an O piece above the T slot. In that case, you can also make a T-Spin Single and have a PC with a J or L piece (depending on overhang) instead of an O piece (this means you get the PC if either O or J is among the first 2 pieces of the third bag). Worst case scenario is that the T-Spin doesn't clear the bottom line. In that case, a T-Spin Single will not help at all. In the following Fumen, the percentages represent the chances to get a Perfect Clear when not looking ahead.

[JimothyJImothy]

I saw the 3 wide 8 tall perfect clear build that okey posted which inspired me to look into it more and find an easy way to get a perfect clear without having to memorize hundreds of solutions. I've made this fumen to show the various ways to build it and the 3 main ways to get a perfect clear. Hope this helps.

[Okey_Dokey]

I saw the 3 wide 8 tall perfect clear build that okey posted which inspired me to look into it more and find an easy way to get a perfect clear without having to memorize hundreds of solutions. I've made this fumen to show the various ways to build it and the 3 main ways to get a perfect clear. Hope this helps.

Sorry for late reply, I was on HD hiatus (and I will still be for the next month). I tried out your setup and it indeed works in one of the listed ways most of the time (> 90 % I would say). So, 3-wide PC is better than 4-wide PC. However, I wouldn't know any situation where it's useful to use a combo PC. Getting a combo before the PC is not guaranteed, and even with a 6-combo it will not send that many lines than with T-Spins beforehand.

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I taught my program to find 2 x TSD setups with holes and it came up with a case I hadn't thought of previously: How about making the odd clear during the second bag? There are only very few setups where it's possible but it turns out very well one time.

May I present you: Okey's Castle Top continuation. I haven't seen this TKI continuation before and if it's still unknown to the Japanese community, then I want to claim its name. In my opinion it's the best way to reach a 8th row PC after using T-Spins. The secret is that you still complete the 6th row in the second bag - with an odd number of empty cells in the 5th row. The holes that are made are just temporarily - they will disappear after that line clear.



Here are some ways to reach a PC (PC solutions). Some of them may result in a T-Spin Single beforehand (18% of all third bags can result in a TSS -> PC). Only the first 7 solutions are needed to reach a PC with the help of hold and softdrop. The numbers mean the amount of bags where each solution is applicable (first number without hold, second number with hold, there are 5040 different bags).



Here are all ways to place 2 pieces that will guarantee a PC for all further piece orders. 81.9 % of all bags start with one of the listed piece combinations (if you use hold).



Here are some ways to place 3 pieces that will guarantee a PC for all further piece orders. The numbers in the fumen mean the amount of bags where they work (with hold) where the 2-piece combinations didn't work. A '?' means that all those bags can be covered by other 3-piece combinations that can be used more frequently. So, the purpose of the '?' solutions is just to reduce the amount of used softdrops or to leave another piece on hold at the end of the third bag. 96.9 % of all bags start with one of the listed 2-piece and 3-piece combinations.



Here are some ways to place 4 pieces that will guarantee a PC for all further piece orders. 100 % of all bags start with one of the listed 2-piece, 3-piece and 4-piece combinations.



Here are some other setups that clear the 6th row in the second bag - or prepare that clear for the most part. None of those setups are really useful in my opinion (well, except for the TKI Fonzie ones maybe - but TKI Castle Top can be stacked instead of TKI Fonzie every time). The four listed percentages stand for the following PC rates (in this particular order): standard, no-hold, first-3, first-2.



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Some time ago, I made a HTML output for 2 x TSD -> PC setups. Here's an updated one, including setups with holes. See the readme file.

 PC_after_2_TSDs.zip ( 220.54k ) Number of downloads: 1120


edit: changed the attachment a bit (6 lines, min-needs).