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Volume 4
Winter 2011
Number 1

A closer look at TETRIS:

analysis of a variant game

Kaitlyn M. Tsuruda

Abstract: TETRIS is a well-known video game that originated in the 1980s. Despite its popularity and an extensive amount of research on the topic of polyominoes tiling rectangles, many unanswered questions about the mathematical properties of TETRIS remain. For example, if the game is played at a constant speed, does a winning strategy exist such that a perfect player could play indefinitely? This paper outlines the ma jor results surrounding winning strategies that have been developed for TETRIS and presents a variant (non-rectangular) well in which new winning strategies are developed. A set of variant wells are presented, permitting the application of these new strategies.