The Classic Tetris World Championship (CTWC) is a video game competition series, hosted by the Socal Gaming Expo. The competition launched in 2010, during the filming of Ecstasy of Order: The Tetris Masters to determine the world's greatest Tetris player. Since 2021, the champion of each tournament has received the Jonas Neubauer Memorial Trophy, named after the seven-time record setting champion who died in 2021. In its first two years, the competition was held in Los Angeles, California, but was moved to Portland, Oregon, in 2012, and was held there annually through 2023. The 2024 edition will be held in Pasadena, California.
The champion is presented with the Jonas Neubauer Memorial Trophy, which is shaped like a J-tetromino.
A special cartridge given to supporters of the event in 2013
The CTWC 2010 semifinals at the Downtown Independent
Jonas Neubauer (left) and Joseph Saelee (right) posing with their trophies
Tetris (NES video game)
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Tetris, also known as classic Tetris, is a puzzle video game for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) released in 1989, based on Tetris (1985) by Alexey Pajitnov. It was published after a legal battle between Nintendo and Atari Games, who had already released a Tetris NES port under a license that was found to be invalid. Bullet-Proof Software had previously published Tetris for the Family Computer in December 1988, while Nintendo had published Tetris for the Game Boy earlier in 1989.
Saint Basil's Cathedral appears in the title screen and ending, alluding to the Soviet origin of Tetris.
A hypertapper (left) competes with a roller (right)
In the North American release, level 29 is associated with an extreme increase in piece gravity. In the PAL release that level is level 19.