March 2025 - 14

BARRY CRANE Top 500
TGu tops Grue
J
iang Gu of Mountain Lakes NJ
is the winner of the 2024 Barry
Crane Top 500 - and the new
record-holder. Gu's 3984.03 masterpoint
total breaks the previous
record, set in 2018 by Joe Grue, by
308 points. It's also the largest lead
ever over second place. Last year's
winner, Mark Itabashi, was denied
his fifth win and finished second -
by a crushing margin of almost 1200
points.
Gu was born and raised in
Shanghai,
China, where he
learned to play
bridge while
in high school.
He has lived in
the U.S. since
1995. Gu, who
retired in 2019
as a business
analyst at a
pharmaceutical
company, is a
Jiang Gu
two-time NABC+ champion (2004
Lebhar IMP Pairs, 2018 Freeman
Mixed Board-a-Match Teams) with
three second-place finishes. He won
the Robot Individual in 2024 and
previously placed second.
Before retiring, Gu typically
attended a few select dates at each of
the three NABCs and eight or nine
regionals and sectionals annually. In
2023, Gu increased his attendance,
doubling his regional appearances
(some of them partial), and finished
15th in the race with 1485 points.
At first, his goal for 2024 was simply
to win the race.
" I started this goal after a good finish
at the Gatlinburg Regional, " said
Gu. " I had planned some traveling in
2024, but I did a lot more traveling
14 | Bridge Bulletin | March 2025
here's a new record in the Barry Crane Top 500
By Amy Casanova
after I set the goal. " Gu ultimately
attended 35 regionals and nine sectionals
in 2024, hitting 22 states. He
also played in at least 202 virtual
club games (that's how many he won
points in!), sometimes four a day -
even when he was at a tournament.
Gu took three weeks off between the
Spring NABC and Gatlinburg. The
rest of the year he played pretty much
every day - twice on Christmas.
Gu's 163.32 points won at the
Gatlinburg Regional may have
spurred him to win the Top 500, but
it's worth noting that he topped 100
points in February at the Hilton Head
Regional and topped 200 points at
the Spring NABC. He also won the
2024 Spring Robot Individual which
was worth 48 points. By April 21, he
had won 755.26 masterpoints.
His year continued strong, and
by early October, at the end of the
Seaside OR regional, where he won
138.95 points, Gu was confident.
" Seaside let me know that I would be
the Top 500 winner for certain, " he
said. He then set his sights on breaking
the record.
A setback came in the form of a
natural disaster. " My partner and
I were flying to the Fort Myers
Regional, but they canceled the whole
tournament one hour before the first
event started due to the hurricane.
It really set me back but the Dayton
Regional allowed me to figure that
I would win the Top 500 for certain
again and very likely break the
record, " said Gu.
" Palm Springs is where I broke the
record and then set the goal to reach
4000 masterpoints. I was disappointed
when I realized I could not bypass
4000. Charleston was my last regional
of 2024, and although I did very
well, I was out of time. "
Gu mostly played in pair events.
" I would like to thank everybody
who played with me, " he said. " Most
importantly, my partners Glenn
Robbins, Hailong Ao, Jian Wang,
Alexander Kolesnik, Weizhong Bao,
Weishu Wu, Peter Wong, John Miller,
David Yang, Xiaowen Li, Will Ehlers
and Alexander Allen. I would like to
thank my online partners Erli Zhou,
Richard Chan, Yale Zhong, Nina
Huang, Dori Byrnes and Yimei Cai. "
Gu's partner to close the year was
Kolesnik. " Jiang didn't quite get to
4000, but it was very close, " said
Kolesnik. " We finished out the year
in Charleston, coming in second in
the pairs on Dec. 30, winning the
evening game [yes, three sessions per
day for Jiang!] with 76%, winning
the pairs on Tuesday, and Jiang won
the evening side game series. 55.01
points for Jiang in the last two days
of the year.
" Jiang is not only an amazing player
and a great partner and teammate,
but one of the nicest people you could
ever meet. "
Even though Gu has a good jump
on 2025 with 251.16 masterpoints as
of Feb. 6, he isn't committing to holding
on to his title. " I have not set up
the goal for 2025 yet, " he said. 2
Where Gu earned his masterponts in 2024
Attended
Points
Regionals
NABCs
Virtual club games
Sectionals
Online regionals
Digital NABC
NABC Robot
StaC games
F2F club games
Total
35
3
202
9
3
1
3
11
2
2621.52
497.18
357.87
201.45
115.12
76.69
58.27
52.88
3.05
3984.03
March 2025

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