Alex Thach

Alex Thach (born November 7, 2008), 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 (CTWC), 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 (known online as "Dogplayingtetris"). 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. 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. Still within the same year of 2020, he became the youngest player to ever "maxout" the game, achieving a score of 999,999 points. 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 (CTWC), 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. 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 15, 2024, Thach again broke the record for highest score reached on a modified game cartridge after scoring 16,700,760 points. 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 . Upon these achievements, Thach was described in a 2025 interview by The Classic W as the "greatest Tetris player in the world". 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.

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.

Event host CTWC Classic Tetris World Championship held in-person CTM Classic Tetris Monthly held online

Default wins† single-dagger symbol high seed after qualifying round, awarding a single bye‡ double-dagger symbol high seed after qualifying round, awarding a double bye