Comrades of code!

I bring you news at this ungodly hour, for it is news worth knowing!

The October Cook-off, 2011, concluded an hour ago.

It started amidst great confusion and borderline panic, because of a lot of carelessness from our side. Problems weren’t visible, the problem statements weren’t updated, the Time Limits were messed up… I think it’s better if you don’t know too much.

For this mishap, we truly apologise. Firstly, to our problem setter and tester, Anton Lunyov and David Stolp. They penned the entire contest from scratch, and our mistakes jeopardized a good fifteen minutes of it. They are not to blame.

We’d like to thank them for what has proven to be a well-balanced set, although marginally biased again towards the mathematical spectrum of programming; sources claim our setter Mr. Lunyov likes his problems “mathy.” What do you think?

After the initial hiccups though, things at the back end stabilized, and all of us here got to witness an enjoyable latter half of the contest, as the top ranks changed a few times. We have here some screenshots that may garner your interest…

How they stood a little over an hour before the end of the contest.

Then, at 2307 hrs…

Gennady moves up to second by solving LAMQUGAM… without a penalty.

At 2313 hrs, as PERMDIG saw another successful submission…

artem_rakhov jumps into contention from 6th, just like Gennady did.

At 2325 hrs, PERMDIG saw YET ANOTHER successful submission…

Gennady solves his last problem without a penalty, takes the top spot; “what a comeback!” we exclaimed.

But, with only eight minutes to go…

EgorK reclaimed his first position with a penalty-less submission for LAMQUGAM, and deservedly took the cake.

So, as one too many penalties proved costly for Gennady, the contest drew to a close. Also, if you may have noticed above, mikhailOK managed yet another flawless submission. While scouting the top few names for plausible winners, his was the only one without any penalties. But with so little time to go, it ended at…

Notice the final submission for LAMQUGAM by KADR, who deservedly reached 7th, and our POTM laycurse, who held the record for maximum penalties in the top 10. =D

So, just as above, here are your winners:

1.  EgorK
2.  gennady.korotkevich
3.  mikhailOK
4.  artem_rakhov
5.  uwi
6.  iwiwi
7.  KADR
8.  laycurse
9.  damians
10. xcwgf666

A special mention to mikhailOK for being the only to executing a flawless competition while solving four problems. Pity you didn’t get LAMQUGAM.

The final Cook-off rankings can be viewed here.

Here are the usual statistics for the page:

The editorials for all problems can be viewed here.

Once again, sincere apologies to the problem setter and tester, and to all the participants themselves. We ask you to have faith in us. You will not be disappointed.

We hope to see you competing in the upcoming November Long Contest, which begins at 1500 hrs on the first day of the next month.

Cheers,
Adarsh Loyal,
Team CodeChef.

Patrons of programming!

The October Long Contest for 2011 concluded this afternoon at 1500 hrs (IST). And what a good contest it was!

Unlike the September Challenge, there were no ties on the global as well as the Indian rank list. This is a testimony in the form of a standing ovation to the quality of the problems; for which we are profoundly grateful to the problem setters and tester.

The men responsible are Gennady Korotkevitch, Vamsi Kavala, Hiroto Sekido, Anirban Mitra, AnhDQ, Ankul Garg, and problem tester Harsha S. Thank you once again!

Now, for a special mention to our indigenous programmers: For the first time in the history of the CodeChef Long Contest, the global top-10 ranks included five Indian programmers. Seeing as all of us here at CodeChef share that nationality, we were understandably pleased. Well done guys, you make us proud.

Just a little more trivia before we move on to the lists of winners. The aggregate number of submissions this month was nearly double than that of last month’s. This may well be the result of a cleverly-crafted challenge problem, for which we have none other to thank than Mr. Korotkevitch.

The relevant statistics for this month are:

Contest Statistics:

Both average scores — for users from, and outside India — have increased. This may be due to the decrease in the overall difficulty of the contest’s problems. (That does not overrule the possibility that the average intelligence of the participants was higher. )

Anyway, without further ado, here are your twenty distinct winners for October:

India:

1.   rudradevbasak
2.   pragrame
3.   balakrishnan_v
4.   utkarsh_lath
5.   Johar
6.   architk
7.   rishabhm
8.   theicebreaker
9.   ron
10. gurpreet_09

Rest of the World:

1.    prgobet
2.   nevidomy
3.   anton_lunyov
4.   cgy4ever
5.   raveman
6.   lutyj
7.   fandes
8.   todo
9.   tanzaku
10. abkqz

That is all for now. Congratulations to all, once again.

If you haven’t yet checked out the editorials for this contest, you can do so here.

We’re running a 2.5-hour Cook-off on Sunday, the 23rd of October. The intensity begins at 2130 hrs, so be there!

Cheers,
Team CodeChef.

Midnight greetings, CodeCheffers!

The September Cook-off, in collaboration with Directi’s Go for Gold initiative, and the Amritapuri ACM ICPC regionals warm up contest has concluded, amidst subdued cheers in our office; this was the highest ever participation for a Cook-off, and we have no one to thank for that but all of you, the participants.

Of course, this would never have been possible without our problem setter, the evergreen David Stolp, and our debuting problem tester, Aleksey Tolstikov. Our most sincere gratitude to the both of you for making this possible.

We employed the cluster judging system for this Cook-off, and this ensured its smooth progress throughout the 150-minute duration. Our developers’ were smiling throughout.

Now, to move on to the winners of this special Cook-off:

01. laycurse
02. nevidomy
03. gawry
04. forest
05. ilyakor
06. phinfinity
07. fhlasek
08. Igor Kudryashov
09. Amtrix
10. acube

The final Cook-off rankings can be viewed here.

The statistics for the September Cook-off are as follows:

As you may have noticed, there was a great increase in the Indian number of participants, and this was undeniably because of Amritapuri University’s ACM ICPC regionals warm up contest collaborating with us.

A special mention to laycurse, whose stellar performance in the September and August Cook-offs has enabled him to close the gap between him and first-placed gennady to a hair’s breadth in the short contest rankings. Good to see someone gunning for that top spot!

David Stolp’s editorials can be viewed here.

We look forward to seeing all of you participating in the October 2011 Challenge that begins on 1st October, 2011.

If there is anything you would like to let us know regarding this contest then do let us know by either commenting below this blog post or by sending in an email to feedback@codechef.com.

Cheers,

Adarsh Loyal.

Bon soir(!) my algorithm-toting friends.

As you may well know, the September Cook-off goes live this Sunday, 18th September 2011.

What you may NOT know, is that this is the last short contest we’re conducting before the online round of the Amritapuri ACM-ICPC regionals 2011, which takes place on the 16th of October.

Grab the opportunity to gear up for it with the September CookOff, our warm up to the Amritapuri regionals. You’re going to need all the practice you can get!

The Cook-off will commence at 2130 hrs, IST. As usual, submission-time ends with the day. Don’t forget to bring your A-game!

Wondering what the ACM ICPC  regionals are?

They are the qualifying round to the olympics of all programming competitions, the ACM ICPC World Finals, taking place in Warsaw, Poland this time! Find out more here.

Register for the Amritapuri regionals here.