Justin Yu


Justin Yu, known online as Fractal161, is an American classic Tetris player from Dallas, Texas. He is best known for his victory in the 2023 Classic Tetris World Championship, for becoming the second person to "beat the game", and first to achieve its earliest possible game crash on January 3, 2024.
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. 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 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.

Personal life and education

Yu is from Dallas, Texas. In high school, Yu participated in a number of math competitions, including competing for the winning team in the 2016 Mathcounts National Competition, helping him to get accepted into the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a major in computer science and engineering. At MIT, Yu pursued another major in mathematics, with a minor in music technology, and is set to graduate in 2025. Yu also plays the cello in the MIT Video Game Orchestra, an orchestra at the school which performs covers of classic video game music. Yu has stated he places the Video Game Orchestra and other school commitments above practicing Tetris.
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.

Tetris career

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. 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. 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 Tetriss late-game glitched color levels, and in his major at MIT. In the 2022 CTWC, Yu finished in second after losing to Eric Tolt in the finals. As a Junior in college, Yu again competed in the CTWC from October 13 to 15, 2023, where he beat fellow competitor Eve Commandeur to place first, winning over US$3,000.
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. Fellow competitive Tetris player and YouTuber Willis Gibson became inspired by this goal and competed against Yu for over two months to become the first to the achievement. 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." 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. Yu celebrated the achievement with Gibson, exclaiming "He did it, he did it!" on his own livestream. 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. 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.
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. From June 7–9, 2024, Yu competed in the Classic Tetris World Championship, where he was eliminated in the round of 16 by Tristan Kwai, who went on to win third place. From June 6–8, 2025, Yu again competed in the Classic Tetris World Championship. Yu was again eliminated in the round of 16, this time losing to Willis Gibson, who in turn lost his semifinals match to the eventual champion Alex Thach.

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. 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.

Competitive record

This table lists notable Classic Tetris tournaments in which Yu competed in and their outcomes. It includes any appearances at the CTWC World Championship, CTWC DAS Jonas Cup, CTWC DAS World Cup, CTM Mega Masters, as well as high placings at related tournaments, such as reaching at least semifinals in other CTWC or CTM events. CTM results prior to 2022 only list the winner and runner-up, and information may be incomplete.
YearTournamentSizeSeedScorePlace
2020CTM April ChallengersN/AN/AN/A
2020CTM August FuturesN/AN/AN/A
2021CTM April Challengers1663–1
2021CTM June Challengers1664–0rowspan="2"
2021CTM August Masters1614–0-
2021CTWC World Championship 6443–2
2021CTWC European Championship 3215–2
2022CTM April Mega Masters32105–0
2022CTM May Masters1642–1rowspan="2"
2022CTM June Masters1642–1-
2022CTWC Lone Star 122†3–0rowspan="3"
2022CTM July Masters16114–0-
2022CTM August Masters1614–0-
2022CTM September Masters1622–1
2022CTWC World Championship481†4–1
2022CTM November Masters1612–1
2023CTM April Mega Masters787†2–1
2023CTM June PAL 174†7–2rowspan="2"
2023CTM Lone Star DAS 1283–1-
2023CTWC World Championship483†5–0rowspan="2"
2023CTM October Masters 1644–0-
2023CTM November Masters 1623–1
2023CTM December Masters1662–1rowspan="2"
2024CTWC Boston 121†1–1-
2024CTM January Masters1634–0rowspan="4"
2024CTWC Genesis 121†3–0-
2024CTM February Masters1614–0-
2024CTM March Mega Masters6456–0-
2024CTWC World Championship489†1–1
2024CTM July DAS Masters1612–1
2024CTWC Minneapolis 122†3–0rowspan="3"
2024CTM September Challengers1654–0-
2024CTWC DAS Jonas Cup 486†5–0-
2024CTM October DAS Masters323‡2–1
2025CTWC Genesis DAS 1614–0
2025CTWC Genesis 1622–2
2025CTM March Masters326‡3–1
2025CTM March DAS Masters3213†3–1
2025CTM April Mega Masters645‡2–1
2025CTWC World Championship485†1–1
2025CTWC DAS World Cup 482‡2–2
2025CTWC DAS Jonas Cup 487†4–1