Beginning to play Tetris around 2016, Yu entered the competitive scene around 2019, and was one of the first players to fully adopt a new and faster playing style called "rolling". Through repeated practice and by studying the game's programming assembly, Yu finished as the runner-up in the 2022 CTWC and won the 2023 CTWC while also a Junior at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). After winning the CTWC, Yu focused on becoming the first person to "beat" Tetris. While working towards the achievement, Yu became the first to reach the late-game glitched color levels before the game crash, but was beat to his end goal by fellow competitive Tetris player Willis Gibson (known online as "Blue Scuti") on December 21, 2023. A few weeks later, Yu became the first player to achieve the earliest possible game crash. He has stated his desire to one day run Tetris websites and tournaments of his own.
Yu began to play the original NES Tetris around 2016, becoming interested after watching videos of the game on YouTube, but never playing for more than an hour at a time.[2] He began to pursue the game more competitively around 2019, playing in three to four hour sessions, where he often practiced to optimize his strategy.[2][3] To get a better understanding of the game, Yu began to experiment in programming assembly and ROM hacking, which helped him to become the first person to reach Tetris's late-game glitched color levels, and in his major at MIT.[2] In the 2022 CTWC, Yu finished in second after losing to Eric Tolt (known online as "EricICX") in the finals.[5] As a Junior in college, Yu again competed in the CTWC from October 13 to 15, 2023, where he beat fellow competitor Eve Commandeur (known online as "Sidnev") to place first, winning over US$3,000.[1][2]
Yu playing against Eve Commandeur ("Sidnev") in the 2023 CTWC Finals
After the 2023 CTWC, Yu announced his intentions to try to "beat the game", a point late in the game when its code glitches and displays a game crash due to hardware limitations within the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES).[2][6] Fellow competitive Tetris player and YouTuber Willis Gibson (known online as "Blue Scuti") became inspired by this goal and competed against Yu for over two months to become the first to the achievement.[7] Yu particularly struggled with a level nicknamed "dusk", which he described as "so incredibly dark that I felt as if I'd been blinded for a split second."[7] While fixing the issue by purchasing a universal remote which increased his TV's brightness, Yu learned Gibson was close to crashing the game, and watched his livestream where Gibson ultimately "beat the game" on December 21, 2023.[3][7][8] Yu celebrated the achievement with Gibson, exclaiming "He did it, he did it!" on his own livestream.[9][10] Yu continued to work towards the goal, and on another livestream on January 3, 2024, he beat the game, becoming the second person to do so after Gibson and first person to achieve the earliest possible game crash on level 155, two levels quicker than on Gibson's run.[6][11][12] After the large amount of media coverage that came from beating the game, Yu argued he did not want the message to read as "We've finished up!" to potential new players, when other achievements such as the "perfect Tetris game" consisting of only the highest scoring line-clears called "tetrises", and "rebirth", playing the same so long it restarts at level one, had both yet to be done.[7]
In early 2024, Yu hosted his own Tetris event at MIT, given the tongue-in-cheek name "Boston T Parity", which only through word of mouth had between fifty to sixty attendees.[3] From June 7–9, Yu competed in the 2024 CTWC, where he was eliminated in the Round of 16 by Tristan Kwai (known online as "Tristop"), who went on to win third place.[13][14] Yu has stated his future goal is to one day help run Tetris websites and tournaments as opposed to competing in them, believing the large effort needed to run them often goes unnoticed.[2][3]
From June 6–8, Yu returned to compete in the 2025 Classic Tetris World Championship. Albeit securing seed 5, Yu was eliminated early once again in the round of 16, this time losing to Willis Gibson, who in turn would lose his semifinals match to the eventual champion Alex Thach.[15][16]
Playing style
Shortly after Yu began to play competitively, he was among the first to change their playing style to "rolling", a technique which involves rolling the back of the controller with all five fingers to position the game pieces more quickly. This became crucial to beating later levels of the game and to staying competitive in modern tournaments.[2] In a February 2024 interview with the newspaper The Tech, Yu stated his strategy revolved less around making "the board look as nice as possible", and trying to focus on completing tetrises.[3]
Competitive record
Below is a table of the Tetris tournaments Yu participated in and their outcome. It should be noted the table is likely incomplete, as results on the CTM website prior to February 2022 only list the name of a competitor if they won or were the runner-up, not including the names of those who competed otherwise.[17]
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