I've noticed that sometimes after you get the Raj Diamond, you don't actually get the extra life. You'll have 1 life left after elevator pit death (Just after the Diamond).

In the past, I've thought the diamond glitch was bad, but it turns out ducking under the 2nd stone head is about 3.2 seconds faster than taking a death there. So it turns out the diamond glitch saves time...quite a bit of time.

Does anyone have any kind of information regarding what causes the diamond glitch? I've noticed that it's been streaky for me in the past...I'll get it a few runs in a row sometimes, but I have no idea what causes it.

Maybe I'm missing something else that makes the diamond glitch bad? Let me know what you Super P freaks think.

Looks like the life counter corrects itself after the next extra life threshold. You have 3 lives after the water snake death if you get the diamond glitch and avoid the stone head.