A friend of mine & I broke the top 100 worldwide ranking in Tetris on the original XBOX a number of years ago. Well, not to brag but we would smoke (we took turns) the competition. Well, that cockiness ended when we started playing people in the top 100. I remember playing a guy in the top 5 and it was unbelievable how fast this guy could play. After chatting with this guy we found that he would play Tetris like a game of chess. He would always think 10+ moves ahead and would always prepare for those "7 S pieces in a row" situation. Another tip my friend and I learned is that many Tetris "masters" tend to only think about broad piece placement and not specific piece placement (literally piece by piece analysis). Once my friend & I started playing with the "chess like" approach, our game improved even more. Unfortunately, there is always that "special gift" factor in puzzle games. Just like Bobby Fischer had a gift in chess, this guy had a gift in Tetris that we can never match.