Classic Tetris World Championship
| Tournament information | |
|---|---|
| Sport | Classic Tetris |
| Established | 2010 |
Number of tournaments | 16 |
| Venue | Pasadena Convention Center (2024–present) Online (2020–21) Oregon Convention Center (2012–19, 2022–23) University of Southern California (2011) Downtown Independent (2010) |
| Purse | $23,256 (2025) |
| Website | thectwc.com |
| Current champion | |
| Alex Thach (2025) | |
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. 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 (with the exceptions of the 2020 and 2021 tournaments, held online due to the COVID-19 pandemic). Since 2024, the tournament has been held in Pasadena, California.
The contestants play the 1989 Nintendo version of Tetris on Nintendo Entertainment System consoles and cathode-ray tube (CRT) video displays. All of the tournaments are streamed online with live-edited screens and heads-up display to improve the viewer experience.
The tournament was initially dominated by the late Jonas Neubauer, who reached the finals in the first nine iterations of the tournament, winning seven titles with accompanying T-shaped trophies. Since 2021, the competition awards the Jonas Neubauer Memorial Trophy in his honor, a J-tetromino in gold for the champion and in silver for the runner-up. The trophy's backside features an engraved quote of his: “If you're a high visibility player, it's on you to move the community in a positive direction”.