Alex Thach


Alex Thach, known online as Alex T, is an American classic Tetris player. He is best known for back-to-back victories in the 2024 and 2025 Classic Tetris World Championships, becoming the first person to get a score of over 10 million points, and achieving various other records on both original and modified game cartridges which prevent crashes late game.
Thach entered the competitive Tetris scene in 2020 at 11 years old. He initially found success using the "hypertapping" technique of playing but in 2022 adopted the more competitive "rolling" technique as competition improved. Using the new technique, Thach broke multiple records in a more than hour-long game livestreamed on March 11, 2024, where he achieved the highest level reached in one game and a score of more than 10 million, also winning a $2,600 bounty made by the Tetris community for being the first to do so. On June 9, 2024, Thach won the CTWC after beating two-time former champion Michael Artiaga. On June 9, 2025, Thach became champion again, this time without losing a single game: breaking several records in qualifying and bracket play.
Upon his back-to-back CTWC victories, Thach has been described as the "greatest Tetris player in the world" in a 2025 interview by The Classic W. Thach has also remained in Tetris pop culture by featuring in Guinness World Records, on game shows, and through his signature victory celebration of dumping parmesan cheese on his head.

Personal life

Thach was born on November 7, 2008, and lives in the U.S. state of California.
Besides Tetris, Thach enjoys playing the video games Minecraft, Roblox, and Valorant. Thach also set a personal goal in 2025 to become competitive at rock climbing within ten years.

Tetris career

Thach first became interested in playing Tetris at 11 years old after being recommended a video of the 2018 CTWC finals in which Joseph Saelee defeated Jonas Neubauer. Still within the same year of 2020, he became the youngest player to ever "maxout" the game, achieving a score of 999,999 points. On June 2, 2021, Thach further became the first player to reach level 41. Thach became known to the Tetris community because of these achievements, and in 2022, was able to compete in the Classic Tetris World Championship, but was eliminated early and placed 16th. Beginning around April 2023, Thach also began what later became his signature victory celebration of dumping parmesan cheese on his head after winning a match.
On March 11, 2024, Thach uploaded a photo showing a score of 9.9 million points, which surpassed the previous record of 8,952,432 points set by Andrew Artiaga on January 11 earlier in the year. Thach followed this game up by livestreaming a Tetris game lasting slightly over an hour, in which he broke the records for highest level and highest score reached at 235 and 16,248,080 respectively. This game, which was played on a modified version of the game cartridge to suppress crashes that normally occur in later levels of the game, won Thach a $2,600 prize created by the Tetris community for the first person to reach a score of 10 million points. Thach's 16 million high score was also recognized by Guinness World Records as a record for the modified version of Nes Tetris.
On April 3, 2024, Thach broke the original game cartridge records for highest score reached and latest game crash achieved, simultaneously becoming the fourth person to ever "beat the game" by triggering a game crash. He also became the first to trigger a rare visual glitch nicknamed "Summoning Satan" by the community. On April 15, 2024, Thach again broke the record for highest score reached on a modified game cartridge after scoring 16,700,760 points. On June 9, 2024, Thach beat two-time previous champion Michael Artiaga to earn his first CTWC title. The golden J-Piece trophy was given to Thach's mother to give to Thach, instead of being awarded by the event's host.
In March 2025, Thach appeared on German television channel RTL, participating in the game show. On the episode, Thach won against the three game show contestants who challenged him in a competition where the first to clear one hundred lines of Tetris won.
From June 6–8, 2025, Thach again won the Classic Tetris World Championship, this time winning the event without losing a single one of his 15 games in five matches. Other records broken by Thach at the event included surpassing the 1.9 million points barrier in this match versus Willis Gibson and setting a new qualifying record by tying the previous 16 maxouts, but improving the "kicker" score to 971,440 points. Upon these achievements, Thach was described in a 2025 interview by The Classic W as the "greatest Tetris player in the world".

Playing style

Thach began playing NES Tetris in 2020 using "hypertapping", a technique where the player rapidly vibrates their arm to press the buttons on the controller. This technique was used by Joseph Saelee in his winning 2018 and 2019 CTWC tournaments. Thach found much of his early success with hypertapping, but was compelled to adopt a new technique called "rolling" around 2023 and 2024, as hypertapping was becoming obsolete among top players. Rolling, which was created by fellow Tetris player Christopher Martinez before the 2020 CTWC, is a technique where the player rolls the back of the controller with all five fingers to position the game pieces more quickly.
In regards to attitude while playing, Thach often makes jokes and uses comedic body language, which he has admitted helps soothe his nerves when getting through difficult levels of the game. Thach has also become well known for destroying his setup and dumping various odd items on his head to celebrate victories, most notably parmesan cheese. Thach has notably used this signature victory celebration after beating multiple records in his March 11, 2024, livestream, and after winning the 2024 CTWC. In the latter, an inflatable pool was brought out to collect the cheese as he was doused in it by his mother and the hosts of the tournament. In a 2025 interview, Thach stated he continued to do his parmesan cheese celebration as it was "really funny and got everyone laughing".

Competitive record

This table lists notable Classic Tetris tournaments in which Thach competed in and their outcomes. It includes any appearances at the CTWC World Championship, CTWC DAS Jonas Cup, CTWC DAS World Cup, CTM Mega Masters, as well as high placings at related tournaments, such as reaching at least semifinals in other CTWC or CTM events. CTM results prior to 2022 only list the winner and runner-up, and information may be incomplete.
YearTournamentSizeSeedScorePlace
2020CTM December ChallengersN/AN/AN/A
2021CTM January FuturesN/AN/AN/Arowspan="2"
2021CTM June Masters16133–1-
2021CTWC World Championship 64302–2
2021CTM December Masters1654–0rowspan="2"
2022CTM January Masters1614–0-
2022CTM February Masters1643–1
2022CTM March Masters1672–1rowspan="2"
2022CTM April Mega Masters32143–1-
2022CTWC SoCal 121†3–0
2022CTM August Masters1642–1
2022CTM September Masters1693–1
2022CTWC World Championship488†1–1
2022CTM December Masters1612–1
2023CTM April Mega Masters782†5–0
2023CTM Lone Star 2493–2
2023CTM August Masters1612–1
2023CTWC World Championship488†2–1
2023CTM December Masters1623–1
2024CTM January Masters1612–1
2024CTWC Genesis 122†2–1rowspan="2"
2024CTM February Masters1633–1-
2024CTM Mega Masters6414–1
2024CTM April Masters1614–0rowspan="4"
2024CTM May Masters1624–0-
2024CTWC World Championship484†5–0-
2024CTM July Masters1624–0-
2024CTM August Masters1622–1
2025CTWC Genesis 1633–1rowspan="2"
2025CTM February Masters 322‡3–1-
2025CTM March Masters321‡4–0
2025CTM April Mega Masters648‡0–1
2025CTWC World Championship481†5–0
2025CTM June Masters324‡2–1
2025CTM July TAP Masters321‡4–0
2025CTWC DAS Jonas Cup 484†2–1