PRACTISING WITH INTENT · LESSON 3 OF 4
Reviewing your games
AFTER THIS GUIDEYou can find an earlier cause behind a late failure and turn it into a concrete practice task.
Look for where your choices narrowed.
The final bad piece is often the least informative one. By then, the board may already have only awkward landings. Move backwards until you find a position where a reasonable alternative still existed.
Game history sits below the suggestion panel in the trainer. Select a saved game and use Previous, Next or playback to inspect its moves. The cursor represents completed placements, so compare the board before a decision with the result after it.
Separate player moves from coach demonstrations when interpreting the session. A sequence the coach played shows its planning behaviour; it is not evidence that you have learned those inputs. Likewise, a successful manual clear may still hide a growing dependency.
Choose one cause to review: an accidental roof, a second I-only gap, a blocked rotation entry or a missed small clear. After finding it, make a short counterfactual plan using only the pieces visible at that time. Do not use later knowledge to pretend the answer was obvious.
Trace a covered well back one decision
Find the symptom
A vertical I has nowhere useful to go because the well is covered. The dependency diagram makes the restriction easy to recognise.
Step back to the roof
In the replay, find the move that first blocked access. Inspect whether the earlier NEXT or Hold offered a supported alternative. The later I was not necessarily visible then.
Turn the cause into a drill
If the roof was accidental, practise checking the cells beneath the ghost. If it was a deliberate gamble, practise identifying an exit before taking it. These are different exercises.
This four-deep one-column gap calls for a vertical I. Covering it adds another dependency.
The blocks projecting to the right make an overhang. The open space underneath needs a sideways or rotating entry.
Common mistakes
Judging with the whole future queue
The player did not know every later piece. Reconstruct the information available at the decision.
Reviewing every move equally
Start with a turning point where options disappeared. One well-understood error is more useful than a vague description of fifty placements.
Deleting the evidence before noting the cause
If you need to investigate later, keep the Game ID or use Download JSON. A useful report identifies the move and the unexpected behaviour.
TAKE IT TO THE BOARD
One game, one turning point
- Open Game history and select a recent manual run.
- Locate one blocked route or awkward dependency. Step backwards to its first cause.
- Write the intended placement, the available information and one plausible alternative.
- Start a fresh ten-piece set aimed at noticing that same cause before locking.
What counts as progress? Your review ends with a board-specific observation and a drill you can repeat.
Open practice ↗Opens the mode. Set Gravity and NEXT yourself; your current settings are kept.
Keep these terms nearby
NEXT IN THIS PATH
Mistakes by level
Choose a useful focus for beginner, intermediate and advanced practice.
Read the next guide →Further reading
This example and drill were created for Stacking Lab, using the trainer’s implemented behaviour.