Tetris player breaks Classic world record during tournament, surpasses 1.6 million points

History has been made in the Tetris community. An American player with the gamer tag "Jounce" recently broke the all-time Classic world record on the 14th of September by surpassing 1.62 million points as his final score, at a Classic Tetris Monthly event.

What's more impressive is the fact that Jounce did it under immense tournament pressure. The Classic Tetris star was competing against OdinnLogi06, who topped at around 500,000 points. With Jounce's win secured, the Tetris pro set his mind on completing as many lines as possible using a new "rolling" technique that has revitalised the Tetris competitive scene.

Tetris player smashes world record, surpasses 1.6 million points

Rolling, also known as flyheccing, is a unique Tetris playstyle in which users put the thumb of one hand over an NES controller D-pad and use fingers of their other hand to hit the back of the controller. This improves the precision of moves undertaken by the player, by making the entire surface of the controller function as a kind of singular button.

The method was adapted from a technique used by Héctor "Fly" Rodríguez, who would roll his fingers over the buttons on arcade cabinets, in order to get faster and more consistent mashing speeds.

It was for this reason that rolling has slowly become popularized within the Tetris community, since it may be more effective than both DAS and Hypertapping. The two aforementioned playstyles were formerly dominant amongst most pros, who employed the techniques over several years in the past.

Now that we've explained Jounce's bizarre way of holding the NES controller, it's time for you to see this brand-new way of playing in Tetris Classic down, in the video embedded below.

Surpassing the previous world record by well over 130,000 points, Jounce's opponent was stunned after witnessing history being made during their match.

In total, Jounce cleared 351 lines to completely trounce the previous world record. With this momentum, he would end up winning the whole tournament after beating Odinn and JdMfX_ in the finals.

With the Classic Tetris World Championship right around the corner, fans will be excited to see if Jounce can continue with this momentum. Otherwise, fans are curious to see whether he will continue to this newfound technique, which arguably secured him the biggest win of his competitive career.

• Jonas Neubauer, 7-time Tetris World Champion, dies at age 39

For more on all things Tetris, check out our video games section. 

Feature image courtesy of Monthly Tetris.