How to Become a Tetris Friends Master

Tetris Friends is a great version of the classic video game "Tetris" originally designed by Alexey Pajitnov. Through a Facebook application, you can even challenge all of your friends to a variety of different interpretations of the game.

On Facebook's Tetris Friends, you have Tetris BlockStar (a sort of "old school" version), Tetris Ultra in which you try to score as many points as possible in 2 minutes, Tetris Marathon where you try to complete 15 levels (and avoid carpal tunnel syndrome), Tetris Sprint in which you clear 40 lines as fast as you can and Sprint SP in which you try to clear 40 lines faster than online opponents.

Scores to all of these variations can be improved by following the same suggestions.

Tip #1 Space Bar drops the block.

By watching replays of some of my Facebook friends who have relatively low scores, it becomes apparent that many use the down arrow to drop the Tetris block. This method slows you way down and really hurts you in the Sprint and Ultra modes in which speed is crucial. When you have your block lined up, hit the space bar on your key board. It will drop the block instantaneously and you should be able to triple or even quadruple the number of blocks you'd go through if you only used the down arrow key.

Tip #2 Keep your eye on the top line.

New players have a tendency to look at the top of the screen where each new block appears and then look down at the top line to see where to place it. This is akin to hunting-and-pecking when composing on a keyboard. How much faster can you type when you watch the computer screen instead of the keys? Two or three times faster, right? Same principal applies here. You should be watching where to place your blocks and formulating your moves ahead of time. The column to the right of the game shows your next few pieces. But it doesn't really matter what your next piece is, because, by looking at your top line, you should already know where any of the pieces that might show up should go.

Tip #3 Don't contemplate your moves.

This tip goes hand in hand with tip #2. Try to place your block, using the space bar, almost the instant it appears at the top of the screen. Spend as little time as possible figuring out where it goes. Obviously, if you're new to the game, this will be a hard thing to do and you'll probably end up stacking blocks all the way to the top, ending the game. But, with practice, you'll start to know where each block should go intuitively. When that happens, don't dither about your options. Go with your gut instinct and place the block within a split second of it appearing.

Tip #4 Set up an open alley to one side of the screen to go for Tetrises.

The best way to score points is to clear multiple lines with one block placement. By far, the most points accumulate when you clear 4 lines (the maximum number). This is called a Tetris. Your goal when placing blocks should be to form a nice solid block (no holes), but with one alley open to one side. Every time a long bar Tetris block shows up, drop it down the alley. The reason it's best to open the alley to one side or another is because you merely have to flip the block vertically, hold the arrow key until the block slams into the wall and then drop it with the space bar. If you place the alley in the middle of the block, you will waste precious tenths of seconds getting the bar lined up. With the side alleys, you can be much quicker without worrying about a misplace.

Tip #5 Acquire a nemesis.

The great thing about Tetris Friends on Facebook is that every time one of your Facebook buddies plays a game, Facebook notifies you of their score. Now, imagine if every time you log on, one of your buddies has bested your top score in one of the games. What does that do to your psyche? It makes you mad, of course. How dare someone you know hold a better Tetris score than you. The Facebook version will put your smiling faces in rank order. If you've got some friends who are good a Tetris the competition becomes like Mark McGwire's home run race with Sammy Sosa. Minus the steroids.

Tip #6 Become Asian.

Not sure why this is, but Asians kill at Tetris. If you go to the all-time leader board, you'll see names like Antonio Lee, Cory Chang, Qide Zhao, Gordon Wong, Roger Su, Christopher Wang etc. You will also see a few surnames from other continents sprinkled near the top, but the upper elite are dominated by Asian players.

Why is this? I'm not sure. All I know is, if you can figure out a way to turn Japanese, you could very well see your Tetris scores quadruple over night. Maybe you could be like Eddie Murphy in that old Saturday Night Live sketch where he transformed himself into a white man. As surely as the cocktail parties broke out on the bus and the banks offered Murphy interest-free, non-repayable "loans," undergoing a transformation into an Asian will no doubt have equally beneficial results for the previously non-Asian.

Or, at the very least, you could watch the replays of the top Tetris scorers (available when you click the leader board button) and see if you can pick up any pointers.