Becoming a Tetris Grand Master - Interview with Kevin Birrell
A look at how Kevin Birrell became the first player outside of Japan to achieve Grand Master status.
Tetris players who spend a lot of time beating high scores and defeating opponents in multiplayer often become obsessed with rank. Over time, it becomes easy to obsess over how you compare to other Tetris players. Finding out your Tetris rank will vary from game to game. In Tetris: The Grand Master, your skills will earn you a place on the game’s thorough (and somewhat complex) grading system.
The highest grade you can achieve? Grand Master. Before Kevin Birrell came along, no one outside of Japan could call themselves Grand Master. In fact, many thought the feat impossible for a non-Japanese TGM player. It was an exhausting climb to the top, but after an endless journey of hard work and dedication, Kevin Birrell finally earned himself the coveted title of Grand Master.
What was the process like exactly? How did Kevin Birrell go from Tetris player to barrier breaking Tetris pro? Find out in our latest Tetris interview with the one and only Kevin Birrell!
Q: How did you first discover you had a knack for Tetris?
A: The first Tetris I ever played was SNES Tetris & Dr.Mario with my dad back in 1997/98 when I was little. I’d mess around with various versions of Tetris on and off throughout elementary and middle school, but it wasn’t until Tetris DS came out in 2006 that I really started playing frequently.
I remember being shocked that Marathon Mode wasn’t hard for me to complete, and I started climbing the multiplayer ladder until I pretty much exclusively ended up playing Japanese players (who were mainly on top of the ranking system back then). I couldn’t believe how good some of these guys were; it almost seemed impossible to play as fast as they were using the d-pad of the DS! I started playing Tetris: The Grand Master around this time after seeing a now-famous video online called “Tetris Japan Finals.”
I wasn’t very good at the time, but I met Alex “Kitaru” Kerr through music game forums (my other passion, hence the username KevinDDR) and we talked a lot about TGM strategy over voice chat while playing Tetris Splash on Xbox Live. From there, I got introduced to the TGM community and it was only a matter of time before I started rapidly rising to the top of the TGM leaderboards.
Eventually I would become well known for my ability to clear the invisible credit roll at the end of TGM2+ and TGM3. In fact, in a way I was kind of infamous because my normal visible gameplay was extremely weak compared to the other players who were good at the invisible credit roll. Other TGM players even coined the term “Kevhold” to refer to the way I’d slow the game down by abusing the hold feature to double the effective lock delay time of pieces, a “technique” that took me many years to unlearn.
Photo Credit: ©Kevin Birrell
Q: What is one of the things you like best about Tetris: The Grand Master 3?
A: I like Tetris The Grand Master 3 because it’s an extremely demanding single-player version of Tetris. While multiplayer Tetris games have a lot of depth and strategy, I find fighting myself and the game itself to be more enjoyable.
TGM3 does a great job of forcing the player to play quickly while giving them responsive controls (the intuitive “Classic”/Arika Rotation System) and all the tools necessary to play at breakneck speed given their execution is good enough. It also happens to be very stylish and have an amazing soundtrack composed by Shinji Hosoe and Ayako Saso, which helped keep me going during the literal thousands of hours I had to put into the game to get GM!
Q: What inspired you to try and achieve the rank of Classic Master GM?
A: At the time when I started reaching the top of the Tetrisconcept.net TGM leaderboards, I wondered where I could really go from there. With GMs in TGM1, TGM2+ Master, and TGM2+’s Death Mode, I felt like the next step was to take a crack at TGM3 Master. No non-Japanese player had ever come remotely close to getting a TGM3 Classic GM at the time, and it was unclear whether anyone would be able to make it happen.
Naturally I wanted to be the first person to do it. Eventually I got to the point in my senior year of high school where I’d attained the grade below GM (MasterM) many times. Unfortunately, my consistency wasn’t great at the time and I could never get enough MMs in a row to reach the GM promotional exam. When I finally did, it was the summer before heading off to college, and I managed to fail it a whopping 4 times in a row.
Given the difficulty of even reaching it, I was heartbroken that I’d blown what I thought would be my only chance at making it happen. I almost completely stopped playing for 2.5 years or so, only restarting when a great French player named “Qlex” proposed that we submit a TGM demonstration to Awesome Games Done Quick 2015.
I’d started live streaming my practice on Twitch, and after the wild viral success of the demonstration, I decided that it was finally time to slay the dragon and conquer TGM3’s Master mode once and for all. I was motivated pretty strongly by the hundreds of people that started watching my Tetris streams; I felt in a way like I couldn’t let them down by not pulling it off after all of these years.
Photo Credit: ©Kevin Birrell
Q: Did you adopt a Tetris training regimen in your pursuit of Grand Master status?
A: Absolutely. I spent hundreds of hours watching replays and training for the invisible credit roll, and I kept logs of how consistent I was at the main game in addition to the invisible credit roll itself. I also used diagramming tools written by some other players in the community to practice “drawing” the playfield stack from videos where I’d reached the invisible credit roll to make sure I was memorizing the stack correctly.
In the years leading up to my first GM exam, I was playing at least 4 hours a day most days. I’m not sure that much gameplay was actually necessary in retrospect, but I wasn’t going to stop for anything in my quest for the holy grail. Towards the end I started getting involved with the Japanese TGM community.
KAN, one of the absolute best players in the world (and the TGM3 Master world record holder) flew out to visit me in 2012. Conversely, I went to Japan for 5 weeks in 2016 to study the legendary players at Pier21 Kodaira and Game In Ebisen (amongst other things) and again this year to beat the TGM2+ Doubles world record with KAN.
Photo Credit: ©Kevin Birrell
Q: What’s one of your go-to strategies when playing Tetris: The Grand Master 3?
A: In my opinion, there are two critical techniques you need to master to become good at TGM3; placement finesse and effective use of Hold. Minimizing the use of double-tapping pieces left and right by favoring placements that either can be reached using pre-charged movement or clever rotation (or a combination of the two) is essential to prevent misdrops and increase speed.
Additionally, very aggressive use of Hold to both ensure that you have I-Tetriminos ready to Tetris Clear with as well as vastly increasing your safe placement options will greatly increase the percentage of successful runs that you have.
Q: How long had you been playing Tetris: The Grand Master 3 before you became a Grand Master?
A: I started playing Tetris The Grand Master 3 heavily in 2008 (although I’d played TGM1 and 2 for about 3 years before that, but not as seriously). It took me until 2015 to make it happen. So, basically somewhere between 7 and 10 years, depending on how you look at it!
Q: How much time do you spend playing Tetris?
A: Nowadays I maybe play an average of 2 hours or so every other day, or 1.5 hours a day if I’m playing daily (which I don’t always do). I almost exclusively play on stream because I don’t want to play while not recording video in case I get a record… and if I’m recording I might as well let other people watch!
Q: Other than TGM, do you ever play any other versions of Tetris? If so, which ones?
A: I do play a few other versions. I’ve played a decent amount of NES Tetris (the Bullet Proof Software version). I think it’s an interesting game although it does suffer from some pretty extreme bad-luck situations. I also play the 1988 Sega Tetris (arcade) sometimes, which can practically be considered the father of the TGM series since TGM was heavily inspired by its rotation system and lock-delay features.
Outside of that, I’ve messed around with Magical Tetris Challenge for the N64 (which I’m submitting to Awesome Games Done Quick this year), Tetris with Card Captor Sakura (PS1), Sega Tetris (Dreamcast/NAOMI arcade), and Tetris Plus 1&2. I’d like to start playing Puyo Puyo Tetris soon, but I’ve been really short on time lately with tons of personal projects and travel going on.
Photo Credit: ©Kevin Birrell
Q: What does your family think about your Tetris Grand Master status? Did you have to explain what that means to any of them, or had they been following your journey prior to you snagging the title?
A: I think in high school, maybe my parents thought I was playing a little too much (and I definitely was, looking back at it). However, they were very supportive of me and are extremely proud of all that I’ve accomplished in Tetris, pinball, and other arcade games.
I think once they realized that I was so dedicated that I wanted to learn Japanese just to be able to communicate with the best players in the world, they started to take my efforts a little more seriously.
They’d been following my journey all the way, but I don’t think it really sunk in until my senior year of high school (2011) when I started reaching the very upper echelon of the Tetris community. Naturally they were as stunned as I was when I finally snagged the GM in 2015. Honestly, I couldn’t have gotten this far without their support.
Q: We're certain there were plenty of hard times to push through while working to become a Grand Master. What’s one of your biggest motivations to continue striving towards your Tetris goals?
A: There absolutely were tons and tons of struggles. I don’t want to get too personal, but I was not a happy person in middle school and high school. In 2008 I suffered from a muscular issue that resulted in me being in and out of hospital for tests and appointments constantly and left me unable to eat most solid food for about a year.
I had to constantly balance Tetris with taking care of my health as well as school work, and it left me very drained. Nonetheless, I was absolutely dedicated to becoming one of the best players in the world. Personally, my core philosophy puts trying your hardest at the things you do above almost anything else, so I feel like it would have been a violation of my fundamental beliefs to give up on Tetris at any point in my quest.
Even to this day I’m upset that I gave up even briefly after high school; I can’t stop thinking about how good I would be now if I’d had that extra two and a half years of practice! My other main motivation nowadays is the people who watch my stream. They constantly shower me with praise, support, and are there for me in the times when I feel like giving up.
I’ve met up with many of my stream viewers in person and—while I’m not religious—I can only describe how I feel as being blessed with the opportunity to meet so many amazing people doing what I love. It feels great to know you have the support of so many people throughout the entire world. I don’t want to let them down by giving up on reaching my goals.
Photo Credit: ©Kevin Birrell
Q: You seemed absolutely shocked when you finally achieved the Classic Master GM. Walk us through that moment.
A: That night was insane. Leading up to the GM I’d been playing TGM3 Master almost exclusively, and I started getting MasterM after MasterM frequently with 4 or 5 Tetris [Line Clears] in the credit roll (an almost sure sign that your MasterM is good enough to count towards the 4 out of 7 game GM exam requirement).
My pinball friend Nicholas called me up and said that he felt like something was going to happen that night, and that he wanted to come over and watch. When he got there, I kept having great MMs over and over. The stream viewers got excited and big streamers who I only knew tangentially from Games Done Quick started piling into the channel. Soon the viewer count was through the roof and the “Promotional Exam: Grand Master” text popped up on the screen. I felt like my heart was going to explode.
Just the thought of my GM dream being only 999 levels and a great credit roll away made me feel nauseous and dizzy. Once I reached level 700 or so I knew that it might actually happen, and somehow I didn’t lose my composure in the invisible credit roll even though it didn’t go as well as I had hoped. For some reason (probably nerves) I didn’t realize at the time that I only barely met the grade requirements in the credit roll at the last possible second, so I didn’t freeze up and panic after some misdrops in the roll.
When I saw that I’d passed the exam, I felt like I had won the lottery. It genuinely didn’t feel real to me at all; the idea that my quest of over ten years was finally over seemed completely implausible. The first thing I did was call my Tetris friend (and fellow TGM2+ GM) ApertureGrillz and tell him to come over and get drunk with me because it was all finally over. We had a great night (as far as I can remember). Many gyros were eaten and many beers were drunk.
Photo Credit: ©Kevin Birrell
Q: Have you since moved on to any other Tetris challenges after becoming a Tetris Grand Master?
A: Now that I have the highest grade possible in every mode in every TGM game (or as they call it in Japan, being a “Zensaku GM”), the last remaining challenge is to get the fastest GM times in each mode of each game. I worked extensively on bringing down my TGM1 and 2 times over the last few years, and it’s still an ongoing process.
My most recent two goals were to reach the credit roll in TGM3 Master in under 5:00 and to beat the TGM2+ Doubles world record, which had been standing for over 10 years. I managed to get a sub-5:00 at Monte50 in Osaka this summer, and first beat the Doubles WR with ApertureGrillz and then subsequently beat it even further with KAN at Game In Ebisen in Tokyo this summer.
At this point I want to work on my TGM2+ T.A. Death GM time, as it’s by far my weakest mode. I’d also really like to break 9:00 in TGM1, but that might as well be impossible for me since it took me many years to go from 9:30 to 9:19! Nonetheless, I won’t give up! Outside of TGM, I’d really like to become better at NES Tetris as well. I don’t particularly enjoy the game but I think it’s important to be a versatile Tetris player and not restrict your focus too tightly as it encourages you to think about stacking challenges in new ways.
Photo Credit: ©Kevin Birrell
Q: You were the first player outside of Japan to achieve Grand Master status. Do you think another American player will ever be lucky enough to join your ranks?
A: I think if anyone is going to do it outside of Japan, it’s probably going to be Qlex who is from France. He has been fairly close in the past and I think that if he dedicates himself to the challenge, he can make it happen. As far as America is concerned, I think the two players with the best prospects are ApertureGrillz and Kitaru.
Aperture can accomplish pretty much anything he sets his mind to, and while he doesn’t enjoy TGM3 as much as TGM1 and 2 I think that he is absolutely capable from a technique/skill perspective. Kitaru is also very capable, but he unfortunately hasn’t been playing anywhere near as much TGM lately, mostly focusing on NES Tetris. He has told me recently however that he’d like to come back and finish the game once and for all, and I have every reason to believe that he can do it as well given enough practice.
Q: Finally, what words of wisdom do you have for anyone hoping to achieve the Tetris Grand Master rank?
A: The best things you can do are:
- Read www.tgm.tips, a translated version of a famous Japanese guide written by the old-school player J.O. It’s got tons of extremely useful diagrams pertaining to the gameplay mechanics of TGM, and covers everything from absolute beginner information to the most obscure advanced techniques that even I don’t use correctly. I still find myself referring to the guide from time to time for time-attack information!
- Visit tetrisconcept.net, a forum that talks about all versions of Tetris but has a focus on TGM and NES Tetris instead of modern multiplayer games. Almost all of the good western TGM players are on there, and we’ll answer pretty much any question you have!
- Check out my Twitch stream. I constantly answer questions from new and experienced players and I love to help out as much as I can.
- Start with TGM1 or TGM2. You’ll learn bad habits that are VERY hard to unlearn if you start with TGM3 (trust me, I know from personal experience).
- Never give up! Ever!
Photo Credit: ©Kevin Birrell
We want to extend Kevin Birrell a huge “thank you” for taking the time to answer all of our burning questions. If you’re interested in learning more about becoming a Grand Master or just want some tips on how to become a better Tetris player in general, be sure to follow Kevin over on Twitch.
Not ready to take on the Grand Master challenge just yet? You can always hone your skills by playing Tetris for free right here on Tetris.com!
