A Fine Closure To The Year

2 min read

December does not seem to be a predictor-friendly month. Be it the apocalypse prediction from the Mayans or Sachin Tendulkar playing one more World Cup, nothing came true. And we are really happy about both of them, although not very sure about the latter one.

Therefore, when everyone was guessing we also had our guessing game for our December CookOff. However, just as with those foretellers, we were proved wrong by the end of the contest and this time around, we were even happier than the above two.

The delicacy of problems came from cook David Stolp, while Pradeep George Mathias, who, for the less aware is the ACM ICPC 2011-2012 world finalist and our “Go For Gold” winner, was the editorialist for this CookOff. With chills outside, the thrill for the December CookOff began right from the moment the problems were unveiled. We had our first submission on the problem MUFFINS3 inside first four minutes of the contest, which was a pleasant surprise and assured an action packed night. As the night progressed, the chill and the thrill increased, with the temperature dropping outside and the first 10 submissions getting accepted inside.

The MUFFINS3 & DIRECTI problems saw maximum submissions, while GRIDGAME proved to be the toughest problem for the contest receiving the only submission from al13n, who unfortunately ended up with only 3 problems. The beginning of contest was rather impressive with flurry of submissions pouring in and it remained that way till the end of the contest. The TREEROOT came as a surprise to many users and kept them busy for more time than expected. Overall, all the five problems were nicely set up maintaining a perfect balance & keeping the coders on their toes. By the end of the contest, we were all excited with the way the contest shaped up, which always is a nice sign.

As the contest got over, our team began the vigorous process of publishing the editorials, updating rankings, and moving the problems to the practice segment. By the time all the processes were over, we had some interesting stats at our hand. Topping the rank list, darinflar saw the biggest jump in short contest rankings with 1288 points, while ptak taking part in only his second CookOff grabbed the 3rd position bettering his previous rank of 19th in his debut at the COOK27. Also, our newly appointed problem setter, ballon_ziq, ranked 5th! :).

The key stats for our December CookOff 2012 are all listed below.

  • Total Users: 1113
  • Total Submissions: 4010
  • Number of distinct users with correct submissions: 1035
  • Total users from India: 874
  • Total users not from India: 239

The Top Ten winners for the December CookOff are as follows:

  1. darinflar
  2. uwi
  3. ptak
  4. Ra16bit
  5. ballon_ziq
  6. khaustov
  7. acube
  8. sweiss
  9. sereja
  10. yeputons

December CookOff seemed just the perfect closure to an eventful year for all of us here at CodeChef. We saw some great contests, greater participation, and most importantly some awesome contributions from you all. With all those pleasing memory we bid adieu to the year 2012 and set our sails towards the new year with the January 2013 Long Challenge.

We love to hear your suggestions and feedbacks, so keep them sending our way to [email protected].

You can check the editorials for December CookOff here.

So, that’s all from team CodeChef as for now. We wish you all Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year. Have a lovely holiday season everyone.

Rudreshwar,
Team CodeChef.

EDIT: We missed out on acknowledging the efforts of the person who was instrumental behind making this such a great contest. It was none other than Anton Lunyov, a veteran and the go to man for us in any situation. He donned the tester’s hat once again and also helped David Stolp and Pradeep Mathias to improve the problem set as well as the editorials. I apologize for the goof up as I am still getting a hang of things around me. Anton, you rock!

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