Speedrunning is a skill that eludes many of us, and yet, there’s nothing quite like watching a world record be broken. Even better is when the speedrunner in question doesn’t realize they’ve broken a world record until after the fact. Such is the case of Tetris speedrunner Jonas Neubauer, who accidentally broke a world record while pursuing another one entirely.
A three-minute video posted to Neubauer’s YouTube shows how the whole thing went down. Neubauer was attempting a world record run for fastest 100 lines clear when he stumbled into another world record without realizing it. As he was playing, he managed to get to 300,000 points in one minute and 57 seconds – an event that goes by without much acknowledgement from him.
“That was a quick 300,” he says, focused on his main task of clearing 100 lines as fast as possible. It wasn’t long before viewers in his chat pointed out that this is actually a new world record time, and after his run ended prematurely, he realized what he had accomplished.
It isn’t often you see speedrunners earn world records accidentally, but if there’s one guy to do it, it’s understandable that it would be Neubauer. A look at the speedrun.com page for Tetris shows us that he holds the world record for fastest 100 lines clear, which he’s held for a week at this point. His Twitch page also makes note of his seven Tetris World Championships. Neubauer, it would seem, is very familiar with Tetris, so it makes sense that he’s able to break world records without even trying to.
If seeing this clip gets you in the mood to watch some more speedruns, you’re in luck. Awesome Games Done Quick, an annual speedrunning marathon raising money for the Prevent Cancer foundation, kicks off later this week. AGDQ 2018 will go live on Twitch on January 7 shortly before noon Eastern time and it will run all the way until the early morning hours of Sunday, January 14.
