How to use Hold

The basic hold rule and practical uses such as saving a piece or reordering, with board diagrams.

September 30, 2026

Hold lets you set the current piece aside for later. It is a simple feature, but it effectively lets you reorder pieces in your favour, which makes it essential for improving.

Basic rules

Pressing hold moves the active piece into the hold slot and brings out the piece that was there.
If the slot is empty, the active piece goes in and the first piece of the preview comes out instead.
Hold can be used once per piece: a piece that came out of the hold slot cannot be held again until it has been placed.
A held piece stays in the slot for as long as you like.

Active piece T, hold slot empty. Holding now stores the T and makes S the active piece.

Use 1: saving a piece

The most basic use is keeping a valuable piece. The classic example is the I piece: when you are building a vertical well for a four-line clear but the well is not ready yet, hold the I and use it once the stack is tall enough.

A well is being prepared on the right. Save the I so it can score a four-line clear once the stack is built.

Use 2: reordering

Hold effectively lets you choose whether to place the current piece or the next one first. If the active piece is Z and the next is S, the board may fit the S much better. If the hold slot already contains a piece, the choice is between that piece and the current one.

Active Z, next S. Placing the S first (dotted) fits the step perfectly, so hold the Z and bring out the S.

Use 3: perfect clears

Hold matters even more when going for a perfect clear. The piece needed to fill the remaining cells is often not the current one but the next one or the held one. Counting hold, the number of ways to order the visible pieces grows a lot, and so does the success rate.

Eight cells left (a flat I shape and an O shape). The active T fits nowhere: hold it, place the next O on the dotted cells, then finish with the I that follows.

The Perfect Clear practice mode explains hold decisions by comparing the success rate with and without holding, so you can see the value of a hold in numbers.

Things to watch

Holding shifts the stream by one piece, so your position inside the 7-bag moves. Keep counting.
Holding “just in case” repeatedly can leave the slot occupied when you really need it. Hold with a purpose.
A piece coming out of hold is active immediately. With fast gravity, decide where it goes before you press hold.

Practice this