TL;DR: Oh my god I finally did it.
I'm not going to explain TGM3 in depth in this article. I don't even know what this article's going to be about. I just want to put some words on a screen explaining how I feel.
Long story short, I'm now the 44th person in the world*This also makes me the 34th World Rule GM, and the 2nd Canadian GM. to become a qualified Grand Master in Tetris: The Grand Master 3. Considering the fact that I started playing the game... hang on... oh god it's been five years? ...just under five years ago, I think it's safe to say that this is quite the accomplishement for me. From the earliest screenshots I have, I started out not even being able to get above, like, S3. Considering the fact that I couldn't even reach the end of the game back then, I definitely started near the bottom.
I never really, like, grinded this game until recently. I'd play it every so often over the years, but I'd mainly be focused on Shirase mode, since I found its speed-based gameplay to be more engaging. But I threw in a game of Master every now and then, but it was never "for glory" or anything like that.
If I had to pinpoint the exact moment I realized I might be able to get GM, it would be December 17th, 2022. I was in the middle of a hackathon, just waiting around with nothing to do, and I played a few games of TGM3 on a whim. Something changed this time, though. The games I played that day, I got the invisible roll for the first time. I even managed to get enough tetrises during the roll to get MasterM. To put it bluntly, the only thing stopping me from getting GM at this point was being able to do it consistently.
So what did I do? I stopped playing for two years.
Well, to be fair, I didn't not do anything for the whole time. I'd play a few random games on clones every now and then (which are easier because they tell you your section times), but it wasn't until around a month ago, a short while after TGM4 came out, that I started actually dedicating some time to playing Master mode. Sure enough, just after I got back into it, I started getting promotional exams for grades higher than I'd ever gotten before.
May 16th of this year I got qualified for Master (the grade). A few days after, I got to MV. By the 28th, I'd gotten all the way to MasterM. This is when it gets real -- at this point, you can technically get the GM grade, but you'll never know about it -- it looks exactly like MM until you pass the GM exam. At this point, I started recording all my games out of fear that I'd miss the GM exam.
And guess what? About a dozen games later, on June 1st, I got offered the GM exam for the first time. At this point, I was freaking out*Just watch the video. I misdrop the second piece of the run. the whole time, I could barely concentrate. I wish I was wearing my watch at the time because I would have loved to know just how high my heart rate got. At multiple points I thought I threw the run only to be given each section COOL!! after the other. There's no other way to put it: I was locked in.
And it paid off. After the scariest invisible roll of my life, and after I thought I failed the exam -- I got it. I got qualified for Grand Master. The 44th person in the world to have personally completed the exam.
I started freaking out, naturally. It was honestly the first gaming accomplishment that I felt 100% genuinely proud of. I told everyone I knew (sorry about that, I was excited), and I'm extremely grateful for all the positive reactions I got. I can't thank everyone enough.
I think I've made my thoughts on the journey clear enough, even if there was no real structure to it. I'd like to personally dedicate the GM to a handful of people, regardless of how cliche it might sound:
I'm gonna go take a walk or something. I think I've peaked.