The long piece and T-shaped piece always rotate to the right of the screen when you spin them. This means that you need more space on the right side of the screen to move pieces as the game progresses. Start each game by layering pieces on the left side to keep the right side open. Build up rows of pieces and leave the rightmost column open until you have 4 solid rows. Once you have a long piece (called an I piece), drop it in the column and start over again.  In Tetris, a “well” refers to the column that you leave open to score while the other cells on a row are getting filled. Lay I pieces horizontally when you get them early on to build your mound. If you start with a Z or S piece, you’ll need to leave an opening on the bottom row. Place it in the middle so that you can tuck a J or L piece into the open cell. You lose a game of Tetris when the pieces stack all the way to the ceiling of the playing field. If you’ve covered multiple wells on accident or left too many pieces hanging, you’ll need to “burn” a few rows to lower the size of your mound and give yourself more room to work. As soon as you realize that the mound is getting too big for you to safely maneuver pieces around, start clearing rows by completing them however you can to make it smaller.  When you complete a row, it disappears. Making rows disappear will make your mound smaller. “Clearing,” “digging,” and “burning” have different connotations in terms of the player’s intentions, but they’re all just different ways of saying “make rows disappear.” Sometimes, you simply won’t get an I piece for the first 20-30 turns of the game. This will require a lot of burning early on to keep your mound manageable. Adjust the amount of burning you do as you level up. As the pieces move faster with every level, the amount of space that you’ll need to move pieces will increase. RNG stands for “random number generator.” You will hear players complain about RNG when they go a long time without an I piece and have to cover the well. Competitive Tetris gives you bonus points for placing pieces more quickly. Increase the speed that you drop pieces into place by pressing down on your joystick or keyboard and holding it while the piece travels. Instead of pausing to rotate a piece, rotate the piece while it falls.  The points that you accrue over the course of a match will add up quite a bit. Soft drop whenever you comfortably can to increase your score. When you hold a button or stick down while you place a piece, you are performing a “soft drop.” On some versions of Tetris, you can press up on your joystick or keyboard to drop a piece instantly. In timed Tetris, utilize the hard drop to place a piece as fast as you can. As soon as you get a piece, rotate it to match the slot you need. Move it left or right until it is floating over the position that you want to place it and press up. The piece will instantly shoot to the bottom of the screen where you were hovering. The most popular version of competitive Tetris is played on Nintendo's Tetris. There is no hard drop function in this version of the game.
Build a mound on the left side at the beginning of every game. Burn rows to make your mound smaller when it gets too big. Hold the down button to move pieces for a quick soft drop. Press the up button to place a piece instantly for a hard drop.