"Willis Gibson (known professionally as "Blue Scuti") is a 13-year-old professional Tetris player from Oklahoma. After getting interested in the game two years prior in 2021, Gibson began to improve, attending professional Tetris tournaments including the Classic Tetris World Championship in 2023, where he placed third. He would gain international notoriety on December 21, 2023, when he became the first person to "beat the game" after getting to the previously unreached level 157 and triggering a kill screen. He is currently regarded as one of the best Tetris players in the United States. (Wikipedia)

"Gibson was born in 2010 or 2011 in Stillwater, Oklahoma to Karin Cox, herself a gamer and high school math teacher, and Adam Gibson, who died in December 2023. Apart from Tetris, playing at the arcade and other retro games, bowling, and cycling were other hobbies of Gibson. While Gibson has found success in Tetris, he has stated he doesn't want a job in e-sports, and is planning to use any money he's won to pay for college.

"Gibson began to play the 1985 puzzle video game Tetris in 2021 when he was 11 years old[4] after becoming interested in the game via YouTube. Playing the game started out as "mainly a hobby," according to himself in a 2023 interview, but later grew into play online against others and livestreaming under the gaming name "Blue Scuti," after the star UY Scuti.[4] Gibson would compete in several gaming tournaments,[5] including placing third in the Classic Tetris World Championship (CTWC) in October 2023, winning US$1,500. Gibson, aged 13, was the youngest participating competitor. Gibson won his first live tournament at a Kansas City regional later in the year, and is set to play at the Heart of Texas tournament in Waco from January 20–21, 2024." 

"In certain video games, usually the game beats the player and not the other way around. But last month, 13-year-old Willis Gibson of Oklahoma became the first person believed to ever beat the original Nintendo version of Tetris," the NPR says.

"Thirty-four years after Tetris was first released, Gibson ended up advancing so far that the game itself could not keep up with him. At level 157, he reached the notorious "kill screen" — the point in the game where it becomes unplayable because of limitations with the game's original programming. It took him less than 39 minutes.

"How rare was his accomplishment? Before this, only artificial intelligence had been attributed with reaching the kill screen."

"Being the first person to beat the original Tetris game would have been enough for 13-year-old Willis Gibson, a shy teen who spends hours every day piecing the virtual tiles together," the NBC NEWS says.

"But meeting the two men behind the Tetris Co. was almost too much for Willis, who struggled to find the words when Alexey Pajitnov, the creator of the game we know today, and Henk Rogers, the company's founder and chairman, surprised him during a Zoom interview with NBC News.

"On Tuesday, Willis posted a video to his YouTube page that showed him appearing to defeat Tetris after about 38 minutes of playing. The teen, who goes by Blue Scuti online, is seen breathing heavily and exclaiming when he crashed Tetris, reaching the game's kill screen."

"In a groundbreaking achievement, 13-year-old Willis Gibson, also known as "blue scuti," has become the first human to reach the elusive "kill screen" of the Nintendo version of Tetris, a feat previously thought to be attainable only by artificial intelligence. Willis documented his extraordinary accomplishment in a captivating over 40-minute video uploaded to YouTube this week, showcasing the intense moment when he pushed the classic computer game to its limits," The Economic Times says.

"The emotional climax of Willis' video stands in stark contrast to the preceding 35 minutes of focused gameplay. While his fingers moved rapidly across the controller, the Oklahoma-based competitive gamer calmly navigated the falling blocks. The Tetris community, both online and in-person tournament players, celebrated this historic accomplishment, labeling it as an achievement previously deemed impossible by many.

"For a long time, Level 29 was believed to be the game's final challenge, as the blocks fell at an overwhelming speed. However, recent innovations in gameplay have allowed players to surpass this level. On December 21, Willis reached Level 157, dropping a piece that triggered a glitch, causing a single line of blocks to vanish, and the game to freeze. This marked the first instance where a human player, not a computer, reached the elusive "kill screen."

"Willis Gibson, a competitive Tetris player prodigy from Oklahoma, advanced so far in the original Nintendo version of the game that it froze. “I can’t feel my fingers,” he said afterward," The New York Times says.

"On Dec. 21, Willis Gibson, 13, put his hands to his head and rocked back and forth in an office chair in his bedroom in Stillwater, Okla., unable to believe what he had just accomplished. His screen had frozen, and his Tetris score read “999999.” Willis had just become the first person to advance so far in the original Nintendo version of the puzzle game Tetris that the game froze, achieving a feat previously credited only to artificial intelligence.

"Invented by the software engineer Alexey Pajitnov and released on the original Nintendo Entertainment System in 1989, Tetris features relentless arrays of shapes floating down a player’s screen. The object of the game is to keep the blocks from piling up. Players can rotate the blocks and position them to form solid lines, at which point those rows are cleared away. It is among the most enduring and celebrated video games ever."

"A 13-year-old in Oklahoma is believed to be the first person ever to beat Tetris since the game’s release more than three decades ago," The Guardian says.

"Previously, only bots powered by artificial intelligence had forced the game, popularised by the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) and Game Boy consoles, to the end of its “kill screen”, where its signature blocks are falling so fast that the game itself can’t continue.

"In a video documenting his feat and posted on Tuesday, the Oklahoma teenager, known as Blue Scuti online and by his legal name, Willis Gibson, plays for roughly 38 minutes and reaches level 157 before saying, “Oh, I missed it,” believing that a misplaced block scuttled his attempt."

"A casual gamer could reasonably assume that, after nearly 35 years, there aren’t many achievements left to attain in the original Nintendo version of Tetris," the Popular Science says.

"Willis “blue scuti” Gibson, however, is not a casual gamer by any stretch of the imagination. And on December 21, the 13-year-old pulled off a seemingly impossible feat—he became the first person to “break” the classic puzzle game.

"During a livestream, Gibson shocked viewers (and himself) by encountering a never-before-documented, game-ending glitch while playing Tetris on Level 157. To pull off an achievement many once believed impossible, Gibson relied on hours of training, a dedicated community of like-minded gamers, as well as a decades’ deep history of playing innovation, statistical analysis, and perseverance."

"Tetris is an old-school video game, released nearly 40 years ago. But a 13-year-old from Oklahoma just pulled off a new trick on the classic, being the first player to truly beat the game," the USA Today says.

"Willis Gibson, 13, of Stillwater, Okla., recently earned the ultimate achievement in the game, developed by Russian scientist Alexey Pajitnov in 1984. He successfully manipulated the waves of falling shapes for more than 38 minutes until the game crashed, as can be seen in a video posted on his YouTube page, and reached the "kill screen."

"Gibson wasn't just lucky. A gamer who competes using the moniker Blue Scuti (in honor of the universe's largest known star UY Scuti), he took third place at the recent 2023 Classic Tetris World Championship in October. But he made history on Dec. 21, playing long enough to get the game to crash."

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