Match Editorial

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Room 1 started with nearly simultaneous openings of the Level One problem by ZorbaTHut, venco, dvickrey, and bigg_nate. John Dethridge, jonmac, and derkuci all opened the same problem within twenty seconds, while benetin waited almost a minute, and dmwright for some reason taking well over four minutes to start - an inauspicious beginning.

Meanwhile, ZorbaTHut submitted the Level One after three minutes flat for 247.22 (not the best score in the competition - kv in Room Two beat him by exactly half a minute). He was quickly followed by derkuci and venco at twenty-second intervals, for 246.62 and 245.98 points respectively. bigg_nate submitted at the 4.5 minute mark for 243.71, while jonmac and John Dethridge submitted at 5:45 and 5:55, both getting about 240 points. dvickrey spent 8 minutes on a 231.52 point solution, and benetin spent nearly 11 minutes on a solution to give him only 219.13 points. Despite dmwright's late start, he completed his code in five and a half minutes for almost 241 points.

Each coder proceeded to the Level Two problem in turn, except benetin and dmwright, who each went straight to the Level Three problem. ZorbaTHut was once again the fastest submitter in Room 1, getting 402.33 points for less than 15 minutes of work. Yet again though, his score was topped in a different room (Yarin in room 24, getting 426.46 points). This time it was bigg_nate who had the second fastest submission, taking a minute longer for 391.97 points. John Dethridge, dvickrey, derkuci, and jonmac spent between seventeen and a half minutes to over 20 minutes on their Level Two submissions. venco unfortunately couldn't repeat his performance on the Level One, and spent over 24 minutes, getting only 321.83 points. All the coders proceeded in turn to the Level Three, joining dmwright and benetin.

dmwright was the first to submit the Level Three, partially due to his eight-minute head start over ZorbaTHut. dmwright spent 45 minutes and earned 451.78 points. He then went back to do the Level Two. Three minutes later ZorbaTHut submitted, taking less than 41 minutes for 477.34 points. ZorbaTHut was the first to finish all three problems, earning 1126.89 points in slightly less than 59 minutes. However, unfortunately for him, bigg_nate submitted his Level Three thirty seconds later, actually taking two minutes less to code it and earning 492.67 points, bringing his total a mere point and a half above ZorbaTHut's. The next submitter of the Level Three was benetin, finishing up a solution that took him 54 minutes to write, earning 413.02 points. benetin had skipped to the Level Three directly, and apparently decided not to attempt the Level Two in the eight minutes he had remaining.

The last minute of the match produced a flurry of submissions, jonmac submitting with only 50 seconds remaining on the clock, derkuci waiting until 23 seconds before the end of the round, John Dethridge submitting with a mere 12 seconds remaining, and dmwright squeezing in his Level Two with literally two seconds until closing. The standing were ZorbaTHut and bigg_nate separated by a point and a half, with John Dethridge, jonmac, derkuci, and dmwright within 23 points of each other. dmwright (the highest of them, and currently 3rd place) was 70 points away from ZorbaTHut. venco and dvickrey failed to submit a Level Three, while benetin didn't submit a Level Two.

During challenge phase, ZorbaTHut went looking at dmwright's last-minute submission, finding a bug and successfully challenging. This pushed him above bigg_nate, taking the lead, and knocking dmwright behind the pack. dvickrey attempted a challenge on John Dethridge's Level Two but failed, quickly mirrored by venco's likewise-unsuccessful challenge on dvickrey's Level Two.

System tests destroyed the Level Three solutions over the entire competition, leaving only ZorbaTHut and John Dethridge's submissions unscathed. In addition, dvickrey's Level Two submission failed.

ZorbaTHut finished in first place with 1176.89 points, the highest score in the entire competition. John Dethridge took second highest with 1051.96 points. bigg_nate got third place with his 635.68 points. dvickrey got last in the room, with only a surviving Level One solution and a bad challenge. benetin took second-last, and dmwright got a surprising third-last.

ZorbaTHut picked up 117 rating points, boosting him all the way up to #5 from #10. John Dethridge gained 64, and bigg_nate got 38 points. Everyone else in the room lost rating, from derkuci who lost only a single point to dvickrey who dropped by 184 points, the maximum he could drop in one round. The only other person to drop his maximum was dmwright, losing 166 points and plummeting from his 1st-place position all the way to 4th-place, ZorbaTHut now only 64 points behind him, from 347 points a day ago.