The Classic Tetris World Championships is one of the best gaming events to spectate all year. It's easy to understand, gets real intense, and the commentary adds a ton to the proceedings. 
 
 But this year had an extra element of spice, after 16-year-old Joseph Saelee obliterated a seven-time world champion to become the king of Tetris. 
 
 The Tetris championships are full of familiar faceds, with people who have been playing for aeons. Saelee, on the other hand, had to qualify for the finals. But qualify he did, coming into the final bracket as the fifth seed - not a bad effort for his first finals appearance. 
 
 Saelee nearly didn't make it to the finals, having found himself on the ropes in the semi-finals against Japanese grand master Koryan. The intensity is fascinating, as players make split-second decisions on whether to continue building their playfield versus clearing lines faster. 
 
 The Tetris World Championships is almost like watching a fighting game. The commentary has a similar beat and pace, there's constant planning ahead as players calculate their playfield ahead of time. You've also got RNG, dealing with the prospect of never getting those crucial long pieces that are necessary for a full Tetris (clearing four lines at once). 
 
 What's worth keeping in mind is that these players are using the traditional NES pads, which can't be comfortable if you're tapping the D-pad constantly (as Joseph does with the "hypertapping" technique). 
 
 And there was plenty of history. The other finalist was Jonas Neubauer, a seven-time Tetris champion and the current world champion three times running. It was a story straight out of a shonen anime: the new up and comer and the king at the top of the summit, looking down below at the competition. 
 
 The second and third game of the series also went completely to the wire. Saelee amassed a lead of more than 160,000 points at one stage by the second game, but had to tap out after things went haywire in the 27th level. Neubauer, behind in points, carried on but went 25 pieces without a long bar - and consequently couldn't get the points needed to catch up. 
 
 Neubauer took a more aggressive stance in the third game, and built a solid lead in the earlier stages. Saelee found himself over 100,000 points behind, but some good reactions and a bit of luck on the long bar helped even out proceedings: 
 
 Neubauer had a solid lead in level 26 - not far from the kill level - and an input error from Saelee left the latter languishing 110,000 points behind. But with his skill on the D-pad and some clutch decisions to hold out for the long bar, Saelee ended up getting two crucial tetrises at level 28 and 29, becoming the new Tetris world champion at the age of 16. 
 
 For someone who picked up the game after watching videos on YouTube, it's an astonishing accomplishment against people with literal decades of experience. 
 
 "I'm still recovering ... I came into this tournament just to qualify, just to meet all these great people," Saelee said in the final interview. 
 
 Saelee's performance has already led some to question whether more people will try to emulate his "hypertapping" technique - where players tap the D-pad as fast as possible rather than holding the D-pad down. Regardless of whether that happens, upsets are fascinating and inspiring. Not just for people watching, but for people who have been playing NES Tetris for decades as well. 
 
 You can watch the full finals bracket below. 

 All photos © Coley Brown 
 
 Most days, Jonas Neubauer wakes up a little before noon and either goes to work as a taproom manager in southern California or to his other job where he helps run a recreational marijuana startup. But today the 37-year-old Los Angeles native rolled out of bed a little earlier, still groggy, to talk on the phone about his other life—his most prominent and public one—as the greatest Tetris player in the world. 
 
 It’s a title that grows more inarguable as Neubauer racks up championship after championship. Eight Classic Tetris World Championship (CTWC) tournaments have been held since the competition’s inception in 2010. Neubauer has won seven of them. 
 
 
 
 On one hand, Neubauer is just a normal guy who works at a bar, drinks a lot of coffee, and plays video games in his downtime. On the other, he’s a niche rock star in a rapidly growing e-sports community that one day hopes to be represented at the Olympics—with Neubauer as its spokesperson. “It’s kind of a D-list celebrity,” Neubauer laughs. “But in a certain circle, you’re pretty popular.” 
 
 This weekend, the reigning champ plays for his eighth world title against the largest and most competitive field he's ever faced. Players from all over the world are traveling to Portland, Oregon, for the tournament, including the European Champion Svavar Gunnarsson, Japanese Tetris Grandmaster and renowned hyper-tapper Koji "Koryan" Nishio, and 16-year-old American prodigy Joseph Saelee. 
 
 "It’s basically the entire field vs. Jonas,” says Adam Cornelius, who organizes the CTWC tournament each year and directed the documentary Ecstasy of Order: The Tetris Masters. For 362 days of the year, Neubauer may be a regular guy who wakes up late and works at a bar. But during the CTWC tournament, he's the most respected man in the room. 
 
 Jonas Neubauer playing Tetris at home. © Coley Brown 
 
 Most days, Neubauer goes to work and comes home without discussing his niche fame. It took some coworkers years to find out. Neubauer remembers walking into the taproom one day and hearing a teasing voice yell out, “You bastard! I saw a video of you playing. Why didn’t you tell me?” Some days, when his hobby does come up, he signs autographs, takes pictures, and humors challengers at the bar with a quick game, rapidly and effortlessly stacking blocks. 
 
 Neubauer uses a unique and chaotic approach to playing Tetris, stacking blocks high from left to right and quickly spinning pieces and tucking them into the right position at the very last second. It’s a hectic strategy that makes you believe he can’t find a way out, until he miraculously does. 
 
 “What makes Jonas so scary and dominant is that he is somehow the most solid, fundamentally sound player, and the most light on his feet and creative at the same time,” Cornelius says. “He's like Tim Duncan one minute and then Steph Curry the next.” 
 
 Neubauer likens his playing style to a jazz pianist: chaotic, unpredictable, and always improvising without much of a plan. His playing style echoes his personality, which his wife Heather Ito describes as interesting and quick-witted, yet ironically oblivious. When Neubauer asked Ito to marry him, she replied, “Are you sure?” just to make sure he actually thought about it beforehand. Ito’s watched him play Tetris nearly every day for more than half a decade. If anyone knows how spontaneous he can be with his decisions, it’s her. 
 
 “I actually got burnt out playing that way for a while,” Neubauer says. “It’s kind of a stressful way to play Tetris. Especially if you’re in a tournament and in front of a crowd, because it’s actively thinking with your front brain, and that’s the part that gets overwhelmed and distracted.” 
 
 When he plays, however, Neubauer seems as cool as a cucumber. He started streaming his games on Twitch under the username “NubbinsGoody” last year, drawing tens of thousands of viewers. As blocks rain down his screen, Neubauer laughs at comments and casually responds to questions from viewers, sharing tips and strategies as he goes. Oftentimes, he looks away from his screen to check on something in the room around him or chat with Ito, who’s also a highly proficient gamer. The two make an entertaining pair. 
 
 In the early days of the tournament, Neubauer would only play Tetris in the month leading up to the championship to dust off his skills. Now, between streaming on Twitch and practicing to take on more competitive challengers, “I’ve been playing pretty much nonstop,” Neubauer says. “[Tetris] used to not be a big part of my identity, but now it is.” 
 
 Jonas Neubauer and Heather Ito. © Coley Brown 
 
 Streaming his practice sessions on Tetris also means sharing his playbook. “You can’t grow something when you have the same dude [winning] the tournaments each year,” the champion says. “I want to equip people with a more confident and stronger game so they can continue to come in every year and look forward to it." 
 
 Saelee, the 15-year-old prodigy making his first appearance at the CTWC this year, is one of the many new players who learned Tetris strategy by watching Neubauer play online. “I watch Jonas's Twitch channel every time I can,” says Saelee, who became the first player to ever reach Level 31 in Classic Tetris in late September—something even Neubauer hasn’t done. “I would say most of my gameplay is based off Jonas's gameplay. I try to play exactly like him for the most part.” 
 
 Neubauer and Ito often talk about how it would probably be best for someone else to win the tournament. Harry Hong is the only player to beat him in 2014. “They call it a ‘world championship,’ but really it’s just these two guys from LA who have won every year,” Ito says. “Now there’s people coming from Japan and Finland and Iceland, and if someone from the rest of the world could actually win it, it would legitimize the tournament in a really nice way.” 
 
 
 
 It's clear talking with Neubauer that the future of Tetris is on his mind these days as much as his own future. He talks about transitioning to being a teacher and ambassador of the sport as if it’s his duty—giving back to a video game that, in many ways, has shaped his life and helped get him through the toughest parts of it. 
 
 © Coley Brown 
 
 Neubauer entered the 2010 tournament soon after his father’s death earlier that year. “It was this new adventure that I could embark on and try to make a positive trajectory out of a bummer situation,” he says. “Maybe I needed that first [win]. The ones that came afterwards were icing on the cake.” 
 
 
 
 Neubauer describes navigating the roadblocks of life the same way he strategizes with the virtual blocks of Tetris. “You can’t control what happens to the people in your life, but you can control what comes after,” he says. As he puts it, the secret to playing the game is coming to terms with your decisions and making the best move based off your current situation. 
 
 “The way he plays Tetris, he never settles for a move,” Ito said. “There’s always more. There’s always some different way of looking at it, even if it’s always not necessarily going to work out for you. Even if it’s not the optimal choice, it’s still worth considering.” 
 
 Ito was drawn to Neubauer’s self-described “obsessive” personality when they first met. He is always curious, she says, and constantly engrossing himself in new topics and making an effort to learn as much as he can about his hobbies—which, recently, have included craft beer, hand-grinding coffee, and sourcing his own denim from Japan. 
 
 But Tetris has left Neubauer trapped in an unconquerable loop since he was about ten. “I’ll never have that kind of moment [of closure] with Tetris,” he says. “It’s a little bit of both a blessing and a curse. It’s put me on an adventure, that’s for sure.” 
 
 Jonas Neubauer. © Coley Brown 
 
 Neubauer has always been the best at Tetris, ever since he was a young kid playing against friends in his parents’ basement. By the time he was a teenager, no one wanted to play against him because they knew they'd lose. Neubauer kept practicing, however, pushing himself to the highest achievable level. His loss in 2014 was shocking. No one expected it. He'd become so good at Tetris, his defeat is a bigger story than any of his wins. 
 
 
 
 Last year’s tournament was the most nerve-racking competition Neubauer’s ever participated in. There's more pressure as his legend balloons within the gaming community. But no matter how long his reign as world champion lasts, Neubauer's influence will undoubtedly trickle down. It’s already evidenced in players like Saelee, who is one of 39 other competitors looking to dethrone him this weekend. The field’s getting bigger and better, and Neubauer knows it’s only a matter of time before he's eclipsed. 
 
 “I’ve found it easier to deal with what’s in and out of my control because of Tetris,” Neubauer says. “You get a certain sequence of pieces in Tetris, and that’s out of your control, but what you do with them is in your control. [...] I don’t think there are a lot of regrets if you just trust that you’re doing the right thing and certain things are out of your hands.” 
 
 Update: On Sunday night, 16-year-old Joseph Saelee ousted seven-time Tetris world champion Jonas Neubauer, taking first place at the 2018 Classic Tetris World Championship. Watch Saelee's winning moment in the clip below: 
 
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 Image copyright Classic Tetris World Championship Image caption Joseph Saelee and finalist Jonas Neubauer at the contest. 
 
 A 16-year-old boy from California was the surprise winner of the grand final of the Classic Tetris World Championship in Oregon. 
 
 The iconic block stacking computer game is 13 years older than him. 
 
 Joseph Saelee beat Jonas Neubauer, who has won seven times in the tournament's eight-year history. 
 
 He told the BBC he had started playing as a hobby after watching the championships in 2016, and he plays on an original 1985 Nintendo NES console. 
 
 He said he practises for a couple of hours each day on the device, hooked up to a "blocky" cathode ray tube (CRT) television screen rather than a modern thin screen. 
 
 Mr Saelee said he prefers using the old-fashioned monitor because there is less latency - a tiny time difference between the controller and the visual. 
 
 "My friends are like, 'what is this guy playing'," he said. 
 
 "Tetris is easy to learn but it can take years to master." 
 
 He added that he intends to take part in the competition again next year. 
 
 "I feel like I could still improve - it isn't just a one-time thing."
– A California 16-year-old is the new world champion of Tetris. Joseph Saelee beat Jonas Neubauer in the Classic Tetris World Championship grand final Sunday night in Oregon; a definite stunner, per Kotaku, considering Neubauer, a 37-year-old taproom manager, has come out on top seven times in the eight years the tournament has been held. Saelee, on the other hand, just started playing after watching the 2016 championships, he tells the BBC. And yes, he plays the iconic video game on an original 1985 Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) console. Saelee, it should be noted, is 13 years younger than the NES version of the block stacking game. You can watch nearly seven hours of gaming in our video gallery or just skip to the winning moment; if you're not convinced all those hours are worth it, take note of what Alex Walker writes at Kotaku: "The Classic Tetris World Championships is one of the best gaming events to spectate all year. It's easy to understand, gets real intense, and the commentary adds a ton to the proceedings." (To lose weight, play Tetris?)