Blind spot- the hidden enemy

[SpawN]

A blind spot is a state at which you are not taking reasonable conscious decisions during play. It is the state at which you are only playing with your instincts and reflexes, thanks to the already acquired game pattern in your brain.

Have you ever had the feeling that you are playing on Autopilot? How many times have you been left playing tetris, while thinking about something completely different like your girlfriend, food, holiday etc.

In the specific example above, the main reason for this issue is probably fatigue. You find yourself playing like a zombie the whole game.

However, during a serious game, those blind spots occur for a few seconds and maybe in many cases they are the reason for your defeat.

What does a blind spot do?
During a blind spot, as I already mentioned, you are only placing the pieces with your instinct. That means that you place the piece on the first place of the stack you find that it can fit in. In many cases, the most obvious place may be wrong. Before you can realize it, the situation in your stack might have worsened significantly.

In my opinion, there are a few reasons why blind spots occur.

1. A desire for higher speed.
2. The psychological reward one gets after clearing lines, especially tetris.
3. Fatigue or just lack of concentration

1. The speed has always been an attraction. Most of the players are trying to play as fast as they can, especially if they are playing against a very fast player or there are spectators in the room. However, that craze for speed may create blind spots and a huge amount of pieces may be incorrectly placed, that way creating a problem with the stacking in the near future.

2. One of the main goals in tetris is to create a stack of pieces and then decrease that stack by clearing lines that way increasing your score.Everyone knows that. So everyone builds for the hope of a reward- the clearance of rows. After that happens, a blind spot occurs for a different amount of time depending on how experienced the player is.I guess, the best players have already managed to deal with that problem, but a new player will experience some problems with that. The faster one recovers from that, the better it is. However, even the best players may place one or two pieces after clearing a tetris "blindly"

3. After too much play, one's mind gets tired. At that point one can experience his whole play as a blind spot, playing instinctively without reasoning.

Tips to deal with blind spots.

1. The desire for speed can be dangerous and detrimental. Even if you want to increase your speed, you have to do it steadily and don't try to push yourself too much. You must find where is your limit and try to expand it step by step.

2.For that problem, I think you should practice more, but also you should change your way of thinking. One must realize that in multiplayer the clearing of lines is only the means of getting to the real reward- defeating one's opponent.

3. If the problem is fatigue, honestly there is not much you can do, but stop playing for some indefinite amount of time. If you are lacking concentration, you must get yourself in hands and decrease the blind spots as much as possible.

Overall, I think that every single player is experiencing blind spots during some phases of his game. It is a lot harder, to find the best place for a tetromino when you are playing with very high speed. However, blind spots can be decreased to their minimum if we practice on it.

[clincher]

I just played a set of games against immortal and it felt exactly like this I'm gonna take a break no more tetris for today my mind feels tired and I didn't perform that well, just like you said.

[Rosti_LFC]

I think there's a pretty massive oversight in what you say SpawN. I do quite often get into a weird zone when I feel like I'm not even thinking about what I'm doing. However, when I'm doing that I tend to set new records. The instances when I've gotten up to 200tpm (without misdropping all over the place) I've been in a little zone watching myself play and my mind has been completely blank (note blank. I'm not thinking about other things, I'm not thinking at all).

I wouldn't give what you're talking about any fancy name. It's not a "blind spot". It's just not concentrating on what you're actually doing properly. It's just "zoning out" rather than being in the zone. One results in crappy play, the other results in record-breaking performances.

[SpawN]

There is truth in what you are saying Rosti. Now, when I think about it, it had happened to me too, but I don't think this counts for multiplayer, when you are playing against an actual opponent.

[Anonymous]

3. If the problem is fatigue, honestly there is not much you can do, but stop playing for some indefinite amount of time. If you are lacking concentration, you must get yourself in hands and decrease the blind spots as much as possible.

I disagree, Mountain Dew ftw!

[SpawN]

I disagree, Mountain Dew ftw!

I didn't know Mountain Dew is an energy drink

[Blink]

from how you described it, i think 90% of the time i play is in the blind spot lol.

[Red_Star]

I wouldn't give what you're talking about any fancy name. It's not a "blind spot". It's just not concentrating on what you're actually doing properly. It's just "zoning out" rather than being in the zone. One results in crappy play, the other results in record-breaking performances.

Rosti I feel you put it really well. That is how I look at it. With pretty much anything that someone trains in or does on a regular basis. A teacher that I once had was telling me how his wife studies this state. It is very important for athletes and really anything with competition to be able to reach that state where you are "in the zone". Being able to be in the zone is good thing and a sign of hard work and talent. Zoning out is usually fatigue, outside problems, etc.

 I would say the only time this is bad in Multiplayer is if your autopilot has flaws in it. If you have trained yourself to play correctly in multiplayer and then there shouldn't be much of a problem. The only thinking that should be done is when you are trying to break bad habits or try new ways of doing things. The only time I have ever reached above 180 is when I just got in the zone, it didn't feel fast to me, nor like I was playing all that well in my perspective. It is shocking what is possible when you in that state where you just make the right moves and know just what pieces to place where.

[SpawN]

In my opinion, the particular state you are talking about is not autopilot. I can't explain it, but those are specific states of mind that we cannot explain, cause none of us is working in that area, I guess  

[jujube]

2. The psychological reward one gets after clearing lines, especially tetris.
...
2. One of the main goals in tetris is to create a stack of pieces and then decrease that stack by clearing lines that way increasing your score.Everyone knows that. So everyone builds for the hope of a reward- the clearance of rows. After that happens, a blind spot occurs for a different amount of time depending on how experienced the player is.I guess, the best players have already managed to deal with that problem, but a new player will experience some problems with that. The faster one recovers from that, the better it is. However, even the best players may place one or two pieces after clearing a tetris "blindly"

this is a good point, and i think it applies to more situations, like when you're playing a set against somebody and win 1 game, and even when you're playing single player and you hit a burst of speed and feel like you're having a good game. one of the hardest things for me to avoid is patting myself on the back, and when you do that it's like a self imposed death sentence. you have to stay hungry until everything is done.

[EnFuego]

I think a lot of this effect is due to the fact that your brain is extremely accustomed to playing tetris. If you play it enough your mind requires less dedicated thought to play and allows your mind to wander around. If you slow down during this period it just means you need to concentrate more when you play.

[SpawN]

Yes, I agree. The point is to decrease that effect as much as possible, because everyone who plays tetris a lot is experiencing this in i should say 90% of his/her games depending on the circumstances.

[PedXing]

You talk of it like it's such a bad thing...

IMO, the "blind spot," or passive play as I call it, can benefit one's long term game. When a player is passively playing without thinking, he is training his subconscious to play better. The faster a player can get his autopilot to go, and the closer it gets to his active playing speed, the more consistent performance he can achieve over a long period.

After first learning strategies and patterns, you try to make them second nature. If you are overconscious about how you are playing, you tend to do poorly. Yes, it is better to play with intensity and focus, but being able to play without thinking can keep you calm and your play steady. I guess alot of this has to do with experience; players who are more experienced and who have been exposed to more situations can play for longer and can handle more situations in which they simply play through without much thought.

If I am understanding correctly, you feel that playing passively causes players to place pieces too hastily, leading to poor stacking. However, I believe that analyzing your play or putting more thought into your placements can lead to overanalysis or becoming too self-conscious, which will slow you down. Most good players have already integrated proper stacking habits into their passive play.

[SpawN]

Once again I have to relate the discussion to the different tetris games.

When I wrote that topic, I was talking from an experience I had in an older tetris game, where basically, the "blind spot" I`m talking about is indeed an enemy.

However, what you said PedXing is abosolutely true for games with even piece distribution. I can say that now I have played Blockbox a lot and the amount of reasoning one has to put in that game is minimal.Therefore, leaving yourself on Autopilot can only help on your play and the biggest portion of that help is increase in speed.

[zaphod77]

Ah yes, the phenomena of "instinct failure."  This is mostly a problem with memoryless games.

You are playing along find, and breezing through things, and then the game suddenly throws the worst pieces at you for a few in a row, and you curse your automatic playing for leading you astray, when smarter play would have let you survive.

Sega Tetris is by far the worst in this regard. you MUST either memorize the piece pattern, or play very smartly to survive.

The problem with classic games as that when the speed starts ramping up there, you don't have time to think and play smartly anymore, due to lack of lock delay.  So you HAVE to run on instinct.  And not smart play is rewarded by memoryless randomizers often enough that expecting such crazy stuff to work out will tend to become part of your instincts.  And when it does work out, you get amazing scores.  And your bad games don't matter. only your good ones, so that only encourages you to try and be a psychic and predict your pieces in advance, because it seems to get you your best games.

Games like NES or Gameboy tetris that give a HUGE score boost for tetrises only encourage to do this more.  They also tend to gather entropy during gameplay, which allows your instincts to work their magic more.  

Relying on these instincts is a bad habit, and one that playing enough of TGM or GUideline will break you of if you do it enough.  However, it will repalce it with other instincts that will once again lead you astray when you go back to memoryless, because you will start seeing piece sequences you aren't prepared for again.

Playing Bastet is a good way to learn true smart play under memoryless, but also a very frustrating one.