everybody thinks they're good at tetris
i mean
who's not thought at some point hey i'm
great at this game and so when you sit
down and you show them what good really
means
and just how fast you can play this game
or just how accurately you can play this
game people always think i've lost you
know oh you've lost it now you'll never
be able to do that and then you bring it
back and that's the best feeling because
everybody thinks
it's over and and it is definitely not
over
i'm i'm james and i'm working here as a
phd student
i'm doing something called statistical
mechanics but don't be put off by the
word statistics i know it's a scary one
i'm actually working with roger
professor bowley and we're doing some
really cool stuff towards my phd so
hopefully by this time next year i shall
be dr clewett which i'm looking forward
to enormously
i think most people know now that um i
also play arcade games
i'm particularly i'm addicted to tetris
it's a very compulsive little game i
think i just went along for a while just
playing for my own satisfaction by
chance i posted a score on a bulletin
board on the internet
and
a guy came back to me then his name was
steve krugman and he said i can answer
this um if you've really scored that
then that's incredible that's way above
the world record this was maybe
two weeks before the world championships
the classic arcade games expo in las
vegas
and so he invited me he said well you
know come to vegas and and prove it
it was quite intense and
i remember i wasn't playing my best i
was unnerved by the whole situation
there was a point when a guy called
billy mitchell who is the world record
holder for pac-man and burger time and a
whole bunch of other games i think he's
he's in the guinness book of records um
several times for arcade gaming and he
was playing a game called burger time
which has never been released in the uk
and he was about to complete it he was
about to finish the whole game and so
everybody ran off to watch billy and the
the place where i was went very quiet
and then i got a moment of peace and i
just sat there and i played my game
and it all came together everything was
just clicking beautifully and by the
time people came back
i was only two 200 000 points off the
world record
and making good progress and i thought
i'm gonna do this and everybody came
back and gathered round and
big you know saucepan eyes look he's
doing it he's doing it and my hands were
dripping and sweat all over the joystick
was just wet
and uh
i got one level short of the world
record and i slipped and it at that
speed everything goes wrong just just
like that and it's gone
so
this close this close and so i held the
the second highest official score of all
time what's that that was
1.57 million
um and the world record is 1.63 million
so
really close
uh well i won uh sorry yes that's quite
important i went to the world arcade
championships and i won
and so in 1999 i was the world arcade
games tetris champion
and that is something i've been dining
out on ever since
which uh you know it i think it's
probably got me every job interview i've
ever been for because people just want
to know how sad you are you know they
look at your cv and i think we've got to
meet this guy because he's probably got
a beard down to here you know
so i hope i don't disappoint them when i
meet them
to be that good at tetris
it takes a a certain level of focus my
friends at
college used to call me obsessive james
and that's true i i am very very
obsessive and that helps with tetris but
it helps with physics it helps with
everything that i do because
you've got to have a certain amount of
focus or willingness to sit there and
apply yourself and when it doesn't work
you've got to do it again because there
there will be times when it doesn't work
in both physics and tetris
and so this sort of obsessive compulsive
very easily addicted
um personality
has
has really defined my life it's it's got
me where i am
yeah i mean everybody's got a hero right
so in 2007
um i was invited to play at nottingham's
game city event
and have a go at the world record here
in nottingham and so i
i went down and um i was standing
playing at a machine that brought in
especially for me
and uh going along quite well i thought
and then out the corner of my eye over
here i just saw this guy and i thought
no it can't be can't be
but it was a guy called alexi palinov
and he's the guy who wrote tetris and
that brought him along too but nobody
had told me it was a complete surprise
so the next thing i know and i was
shaking i was like no i'm playing in
front of alexi i can't possibly be
do this at all um and i was just i was
quaking i was nervous i was excited um
it was a real pleasure actually and i
don't know i guess he meets tetris geeks
every day um
but for me i was a fairly overwhelming
experience i was really proud
and yeah he signed my game boy so
uh this this was a gift to me from well
it's a very thoughtful gift to me from
an ex-girlfriend of mine and uh
i can't play it anymore
but i do have alexis signature right
here so
this is one of my proudest possessions
and i keep this on display in my house
so
yeah it's a pretty cool thing to have i
think
uh