I'm trying to get my section times down for levels 000-300, for an 8:45 target time. I can consistently get 1:15 for 000-100 with a good stack, but when I push myself faster than that I make a lot of misdrops and bad placements. My fastest time for 000-100 is 1:01 (which is the last game in the video below), but I can't get that consistently. Also, I probably could have gotten that in 1:00, if you look at how the second to last piece slowly drops instead of hard drops, but when I play this fast I sometimes miss either the up or down button when drop/locking. It seems like center stacking and DAS-left stacking is a lot faster than DAS-right stacking, because when you DAS-right you have to left-tap the joystick to preserve the well. Does anyone have any training advice for improving sections times? Video Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=td7ImN9Z7f4&feature=youtu.be
Hmm, I have been watching your video, and I don't think I'll bring much, but here goes : The first thing that comes to mind is the number of times the line piece is locked at column 2. It seems that you want to lock it at column 1 so fast, you lock one frame too early. I think that you should do it slowly, but also that the line piece should be placed flat in the beginning of a game. For instance, for your last game, the line piece at 3 : turn the L and J blocks a bit so you can place the line piece at columns 6-7-8-9, I think something like that would work a bit better. Also, I think you should have a stack high at columns 1 to 7 or 8, a bit lower at 9, and free at 10. If you ever miss that condition, do not hesitate to make holes, as long as you keep your stack clean the fastest way. Kinda looks cryptic, so I'll try and give you an example with your play at 7:34 2 I : Well that's the first problem, you now have two gaps. At this point, I would try to abandon the first 2 or 3 lines so I would focus on letting that problem slide. 3 T : That being said, I think making gaps near the center wider is something to prevent, so I would place the T flat on col. 7-8-9 and hope for a J or another line piece to completely fill the hole. The follow-up looks good to me in any case 7 I : For the same reasons I would have put the I on col. 3 rather than 1. You can DAS left, rotate, and make it lock. That move might slow, but when getting used to it, it's fast enough 10 O : That's where I would fill the hole (so that's col. 3-4), no matter how bleak the situation. There are several reasons to this : - The first one, you can open it up again by putting a L block to the right. That would be a bit of a problem, but with the flat stack that you have made, you would buy some time and see what happens. - The second one, if you don't want to dig up this hole again, that's fine : If you put a line piece to the right, nothing happens so you don't lose your time and start over with a neat stack. (Okay it's a bit high up, but no big deal) 11 S : Though the rest is fine, this move is the most problematic, because it will take time to go up there and clear the lines so you could tetris again. I would move it 3 tiles to the left before locking it. And well, what happens is that the 16 J and 17 T moves prevent you from clearing those lines, so it gets really harder. The play right after that one looks more solid, I still have that remark in mind concerning the line piece and making the holes, and there are some misdrops (I'm fine with that), but the biggest piece of advice is : the J piece at 89 should fill the gap on the left, so that's rotate left, DAS left, and zoom. a gap on column 1 is okay, you can have that. I think you should pretend it's not there, and if you get, say, a L block or an S block, make the same to the right, i.e. rotate right DAS right and lock. Without those problems I see, I think it would be easier for you to get sub 1:00, but I personally think you should aim for something slow and steady, especially when your stack looks uneven during a game, try to make holes, if possible far away from the center, don't rush that part, and when it looks okay, keep going. That's all I have to say, hope this helps, I think you are not so far away from your goal, keep up the good work!
You have some good points. The way I'm training right now, is I start out at a comfortable speed, and game by game I try to play faster and faster. Right now, my biggest weakness is speed, especially on 0-300, and my control gets a little chaotic when playing fast. I definitely need to work on that more than anything else. On the last game I played, I slowed down a little bit, and because I made less mistakes, my overall time was faster. I totally agree with you after watching that part again.
From the video, I couldn't be sure whether you were using keyboard or joystick, so I better say a little something about that: If you're already using stick, then that's fine. If you're using keyboard, and have no intention of ever learning stick, then that's also fine. However, if you're currently using keyboard, but intend to learn stick at some point in the future, then there really is no point to learning low-G time attack technique at this point, as you'll only have to unlearn it in the future when you switch to stick. Anyway, as for actual advice, all of Qlex's points are good, and for the most part I would agree with everything he said. In particular: "The first thing that comes to mind is the number of times the line piece is locked at column 2." I think it would really help if you got it concrete in your mind the most optimal way of placing pieces, and then got the motions ingrained in muscle memory so that you can execute the moves reliably. So basically, brush up on your finesse, and then practice the moves slowly at first, until it's second nature. If you've got the mame cheat file, you could try forcing a particular next piece over and over, and repeating the move you want to practice until you reach the top, like this: http://fumen.zui.jp/?m110@7ePCXpIAu...3WeD0oBAA6DP?EAEszQE60ODAFvYCA61A6mA6XA6IAAAA Or for I pieces in particular, there's this little exercise that you can loop over and over: http://fumen.zui.jp/?m110@7eopXpDAp...BApZpDAEi?zBApOPEAEszQEJKPDAFvYCApaBJbBpbBAAA One thing to note about finesse: (Normal speed on the left, slow-mo on the right). This move looks optimal, but it's actually not. Compare it with: This way of doing it is always at least 2 frames faster; you hit the wall one frame sooner, and you save one frame not having to tap back. The important question which you need to ask (which you might have picked up on already), is: "IRS or no IRS?" - many placements can be optimized by rotating after you hit the wall, instead of using IRS. This L placement can be made quite quickly with a bit of practice: Note that if you were to use IRS, there would be no way of avoiding a dreaded double tap, whether you use the wall or not. By the way, I made all these animations for a planned TGM guide, hence the soft drop, but the basic idea is still applicable to TAP, just replace the soft drop with an up-down drop-lock. Anyway, so much for finesse. Another piece of advice I can give you is that good time attack is more to do with even rhythm than it is to do with playing as fast as you possibly can. If you rush, you'll inevitably either make a mistake, or you'll get ahead of yourself and have to slow down. Jerky, stop-start playing isn't going to give you rapid improvement. It's like learning a piece of music; if you rush in and always practice the piece at the full tempo, you'll continually make mistakes in the same difficult places, and never progress. You really have to slow everything down to a pace where you can play flowingly. If you can play in a smooth and relaxed manner, then the slight hesitations between pieces will become non-existent, and you'll get potentially very fast times. Because you're more relaxed, you'll also be able to concentrate on the strategy of stacking more, and may even be able to maintain back-to-back tetrises, which will also help with your section times. I don't know how helpful any of this is, but if you want more, just say. It's just that it's often hard for me to put down in words what it's taken me several years to learn "by feel".
Edo, I think you're spot on. I have been overusing IRS this whole time, and didn't even realize it. I'll probably get a lot more out of learning when and when not to use IRS, than simply trying to play faster.
Perhaps it's just input lag messing with me, or slow response time on the release, but unless i deliberately wait a half a second when trying that "proper" finesse, the piece will jump a column after I rotate, so I find single tapping back faster.
Right. But the single tap back is a lot more awkward (at least, for me)/nontrivial on stick, so avoiding that (even at the cost of having to wait a split second more than you think you "should) becomes a higher priority, I think.
Yeah a stick gives better feedback to know you released it. But considering a half a second is 30 frames, once the speed gets up there, it's not really practical for me to wait and make sure I really did release the key.
