Hi Guys,

A few weeks ago, the Chef came to a realization: he needs to go on a diet.  If you’ve seen him lately, you’ll know he’s practically bursting out of his clothes.  So, in an effort to stop overloading on the code he loves to devour, he’s decided to start consuming only the highest quality code.

Only the top two finishers in India and internationally will be eligible for prizes.

We have a few reasons for making this change.  For a while, our community has been telling us that CodeChef’s prize structure could do more to encourage people to do their best.  We agree.  With this new prize structure, we think there’s more incentive for people to put forth their best effort.

*Edit* Additionally, we will be re-allocating the saved resources to other project in the pipeline in the CodeChef Community. *Edit*

Prizes on CodeChef will now be as follows:
First Place Indian: 12000 INR- Second Place Indian: 8000 INR- First Place International Contestant: $400- Second Place International Contestant: $300

As always, please let us know what you think about this new structure.  Your feedback is extremely valuable to us and helps us make CodeChef better.

Now get to cuttin the flab off your code!

Cheers,
Team CodeChef

Hello fellow CodeCheffers,

In an attempt to motivate and encourage more people to participate and showcase their skills in our monthly contests, based on the feedback from several CodeChef winners, we have decided to reward more number of participants starting this February. To start with, we are doing this only for Indian participants.

So, we’re glad to inform you that we will now be rewarding the top 20 participants in India! The prize structure will be as follows:

Note: All prizes above Rs.5000 will be taxed at 30%. TDS certificates will be issued at the end of the financial year.

At CodeChef we’re always looking to improve, and for this very reason we give a lot of importance to the feedback we receive. Please feel free to suggest any changes or voice any concerns that you may have.

We’re very excited about the new prize structure and hope that you all are as well.

Cheers,
Team Codechef

Hello fellow Codecheffers,

Congratulations to all the winners of our first monthly challenge this year and thank you to everyone that participated. The winners for this month’s challenge are :

India:
1. Ajay Somani - Rs. 22000
2. Ashutosh Mehra - Rs. 13750
3. Anshuman Singh - Rs. 11000
4. Pratik Tandel - Rs. 5500
5. Yash - Rs. 2750

Global:
1. David Stolp - $440
2. Stephen Merriman - $275
3. Josh Metzler - $220
4. Max - $110
5. Tomasz Czajka - $55

Fun Facts for this contest:

• The top scorer for the challenge problem changed quite a few times. triplem, pr0ton and innocentboy were all contenders for the spot by the end of the contest.
• Pieguy got the top score for the challenge problem with only 7 submissions! This is also his first contest win. Congratulations to you!
• Its the first time we’ve crossed 9000 submissions for a monthly contest!
• Ajay Somani got his 3rd win in a row and user seda has made his first entry into the top 10. Congratulations guys!

Contest Statistics:

Upcoming Contests:

We will be having a team based contest on 24th of January with the 8 problems from the Snackdown final. It will be a 5 hour contest that starts at 21:30 Indian Standard Time. Since CodeChef users (our snackdown finalists) have already had a chance to see these problems, we will not be having prizes for this contest. You will be able to register for the contest here, and the contest will be available at: http://www.codechef.com/SNONLINE/.

As always, we would love to hear your suggestions and feedback to help make this site better. If there’s anything you would like us to know, do drop in an email to feedback@codechef.com .

Cheers,
Basil

ChocoBananas,

In our previous 10 day algorithm challenges we’ve offered prizes to the top 5 participants from India and the top 5 participants from the US.  We’ve seen a lot of participation from international participants and are now deciding to expand our prizes to this set of awesome folks .  Starting in the December contest, everyone is eligible for prizes: the top 5 users in India and the top 5 users globally.

Enjoy,

Amit

Strawberry Shortcakes,
We’re pleased to announce the prize structure for the Snackdown. The online round (taking place this Saturday from 7pm-12am) will act as a qualifier for the finals, where the top five teams will battle it out in-person at the DirectiPlex in Mumbai on January 10th.

The top twenty teams will be receiving prizes according to the following schedule:

1. 82,500
2. 49,800
3. 30,450
4. 23,700
5. 20,400
6. 17,400
7. 14,100
8. 11,100
9. 7,800
10. 6,000 5,000
11-13. 4,500
14-16. 3,750
17-20. 3,000

Payouts for the top five teams will be determined by their rankings in the finals. Payments to teams 6-20 will be made after the online round.

Please note that while anyone can participate in the competition, only teams of students from the same Indian University will be eligible for the finals and prize money. Additionally, prizes above Rs. 5,000 will be taxed at 30%.

We are planning another contest with prizes available for international participants and professionals. More details on this will be coming in the next few weeks. Best of luck!

Cheers,
Amit

Aloo Parathas,
Congratulations to everyone who competed in the November contest.  Winners for this month are:

India:
1. Ajay Somani - Rs. 22000
2. Anshuman Singh - Rs. 13750
3. Gaurav Agarwal - Rs. 11000
4. Yash - Rs. 5500
5. Akhil Ravidas - Rs. 2750

US:
1. Josh Metzler - $440
2. Po-Ru Loh- $275
3. Tomasz Czajka - $220
4. Balakrashnan Varadarajan - $110
5. Varun Jalan - $55

Fun Facts for this contest:

• Congratulations to Josh who not only has his first, first place but was also justified his selection of programmer of the month way to go buddy!
• Despite a consistent stay on the leaderboard, Ajay Somani has his first solo first place finish (previously he had tied for first back in April).
• Welcome to our first time top fivers - Yash and Akhil Ravidas
• Special shout out to our  Mark Greve who got another top 10 finish (his 3rd) and  zhujlaye a newcomer to the top ten.
• The top four Indian performers are all current or former IIIT Hyderabadians.
• The Best Box was our most solved contest problem of all time (244 AC)
• Help the DJ was the most solved challenge problem of all time (86 AC)
• The first time that the top 10 global participants differ by less than 0.004 points.

Contest Statistics:

Test Cases:
Test cases for the november contest can be found here.

Upcoming Contests:
In case you missed it check out the CodeChef Snackdown taking place on Nov 21st. This is really exciting for us, not only because its our first ever team competitions but we will also be hosting an onsite finals for the top teams of Indian college students.

We are planning another team competition open to students and professionals globally. Dates haven’t been finalized but stay tuned for more details.

Please let us know what you thought of this contest, and if you have any ideas on how we can make the site better.

Cheers,
Amit

Update: Due to multiple requests the onsite contest is moved to January 10th, the online round will take place on November 21st at  7pm.

CodeCheffers,

We are really excited to announce two contests in November. In addition to our 10 day algorithm challenge (Nov 1st - Nov 11th) we are also hosting our first ever “CodeChef Campus SnackDown.”

What is the CodeChef Campus SnackDown?
We will be holding an ACM ICPC style team contest with two rounds and cash prizes of Rs. 3 lakhs! The first round will take place online on November 21st from 4pm-9pm 7pm-12am. The top teams from this round will be flown to Mumbai for a final in-person round on December 5th January 10th. The overall winners will receive prize money and an opportunity to dine with Bhavin (Directi’s CEO)

Who is eligible?
Anyone can participate but only students attending college within India are eligible to participate in the final round (and win prize money).

International participants, worry not, we will be holding a team based contest within the coming weeks in which everyone will be eligible for prizes.

What is the format of the contest?
Standard ACM-ICPC style rules, teams of up to 3, penalties for wrong submissions.

What are the prizes?
We will be giving out Rs. 3 lakhs in prize money, the top teams from each institute will also be recognized and rewarded.

Full details will be announced shortly, so mark the date on your calendar and stay tuned…

Cheers!

Hello everyone,

We are back with the winner-list of this month’s algorithm challenge. For the first time we have ties at 2 places in the rank-list for India

Winners :

Top 5 (India):
1st - Harpreet Singh (5.557)
2nd - Satyam Shekhar (5.116)
3rd - Gaurav Agarwal (5.000)
3th - Anshuman Singh (5.000)
5th - Anil (4.116)
5th - Pradeep B (4.116)

Top 5 (US):
1st - Wenyu Cao (6.919)
2nd - pmnox (6.902)
3rd - Josh Metzler (6.284)
4th - Balakrishnan Varadarajan (6.127)
5th - Chris Narrikkattu (5.000)

Stephen Merriman requires a special mention for having secured the first place over-all

Statistics:

All problems are now available in the practice area and the solutions are public. The test cases for the problems are now available. As the test cases for the problem Mosaic are really huge, we are uploading two sets of test cases. The test cases here are for problems other than Mosaic, while the entire set of test cases including those for the problem Mosaic are available here.
A few interesting statistics for the contest follow :

Feedback:

We removed the submission limit on the challenge problem this time as the problems were considerably tough compared to the ones in the previous contests. We agree that some of the problems had a very strict time limit and this issue will be addressed in the future contests.

Also, if you have any kind of feedback related to the contest or otherwise, feel free to comment.

Regards,
Aniruddha.

Greetings,
We are very excited to announce the winners of our first weekend Mini Challenge

Winners :

Top 3 (India):
1st - Anshuman Singh (1.000)
2nd - Pratik Tandel (0.946)
3rd - Kunal Jain (0.907)

Top 3 (US):
1st - Rahul Garg (0.99)
2nd - Balakrishnan Varadarajan (0.985)
3rd - Josh Metzler (0.983)

Statistics:

The problem is now available in the practice area. The test cases for the problem will be made public soon.
Here are some additional statistics about the contest:

Feedback:

This was our first short contest. All our past contests have spanned over at least 10 days while this one was held over just one weekend. We would like your feedback regarding the contest and its format. If you faced any issues with our site or the contest problem, do let us know.
Also, if you have any kind of feedback related to the contest or otherwise, feel free to comment.

The September Challenge :

Our monthly competition for September will start on the 1st of September at 15:00 (IST). So stay tuned

Regards,
Aniruddha.

Greetings,
We are very happy to announce the winners of our August Algorithm Challenge

Winners :

Top 5 (India):
1st - Varun Jalan (6.000)
2nd -Anshuman Singh (5.980)
3rd - Anil (5.979)
4th - Sumeet (5.964)
5th - Pradeep B (5.936)

Top 5 (US):
1st - Balakrishnan Varadarajan (5.991)
2nd - Kevin Chen (5.981)
3rd - Tomasz Czajka (5.976)
4th - Josh Metzler (5.965)
5th - Neal (5.940)

Statistics:

All problems are now available in the practice area. The test cases for the problems can be found here
Here are some additional statistics about the contest:

Feedback:

This time we tried something different with respect to the challenge problem. A user could submit at most 20 times in a span of 24 hours. We would like your feedback regarding this.

• Was a limit of 20 submissions a day enough or would you like more number of submissions?
• Alternatively, should we revert back to the re-judging method that was followed for the July Contest?

We also need your feedback about the contest as a whole.

• How would you rate the contest problems?
• Were they easier/similar/difficult compared to the previous contests?

Also, if you have any kind of feedback related to the contest or otherwise, feel free to comment.

Mini Challenge:

Lastly, as you all know, we will be having a shorter contest later this month. The August Mini Challenge will be held from 22nd August 15:00 IST to 24th August 15:00 IST. This will consist of a single challenge problem with no limits on the number of submissions. Hope to see you all there.

Regards,
Aniruddha.