Learn Blockfit
Five habits that keep the board open longer and turn single clears into big ones. Start with the first: games end on trapped holes, not on a full board.
How to play BlockfitA one-minute video walkthrough is on its way.
- Keep the board open
- Plan all three
- Leave room for the big ones
- Set up crossing clears
- Keep the streak going
1. Keep the board open
Pack pieces against the edges and each other. Single empty holes walled in on all sides are what end games.
Every game ends the same way: the tray holds a piece and the board has no gap that shape fits in. The board rarely runs out of empty cells first. It runs out of usable ones, scattered singles and thin slots that only a lucky piece could fill.
So place pieces flush: against an edge, against each other, filling corners rather than leaving a one-cell notch beside them. Before you let go, look at the cells around the spot and ask whether you are about to wall in a hole. A slightly worse spot that leaves the board in one piece usually beats a clever one that leaves a pocket.
2. Plan all three
Before the first drop, find a spot for every piece in the tray. The order you place them in matters as much as where.
You can see all three pieces before you place any of them, and nothing new arrives until all three are down. Use that. Find a home for each one first, then place them. A piece that fits now might not fit after the other two go down, especially a long bar or a big corner.
Order matters too. Placing the piece that completes a line first clears space that the other two can use. Placing the awkward piece first, while the board is at its emptiest, often saves the hand.
3. Leave room for the big ones
Keep one open 3×3 area and one clear 5-long lane where you can. The awkward pieces always come back.
The 3×3 corner pieces, the cross and the five-long bars are the shapes that end games. They show up less often than small ones, but they always show up again. Try to keep one open 3×3 patch somewhere on the board, and at least one row or column with five empty cells in a line.
When a big piece does arrive, place it in that reserved space and start building the next one. If the board has no room for it, the dimmed piece in the tray is your warning: clear lines to open space before you place anything else.
4. Set up crossing clears
A row and a column finished by the same piece pay as a double. Build lines that share their last empty cell.
Rows and columns clear at the same moment, and every line one drop clears counts together: one line pays 100, two pay 300, three pay 500, four or more pay 800. That rate climbs much faster than the number of lines, so clearing two at once is worth far more than clearing them one at a time.
The easiest double is a row and a column that cross at their last empty cell. Fill both lines up to that shared gap, then drop a piece into it and both go. An L or T shape can finish a row and a column at once even when the gaps are a cell apart.
5. Keep the streak going
Clearing on back-to-back drops adds a streak bonus that grows each time. Have the next clear half-built before you take this one.
Clear something on two drops in a row and the second earns a streak bonus of 50; keep it going and the bonus grows by 50 every time. One drop that clears nothing ends the streak.
Streaks come from keeping several lines nearly full at once, so the next clear is always one piece away. That is riskier than playing tidy, because nearly-full lines leave less room. When the tray turns awkward, take the safe placement and start a new streak later.
Try them out: play Blockfit. Watch the dimmed pieces in the tray: they’re the ones the board has no room for yet.