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Reception | Room 1 | Room 2 | Room 3 | Room 4 | Final Round | Slide Show | |
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Summary | Photos
ZorbaTHut and Yarin enjoy the calm before the storm
Opening Night Reception
by Matt Murphy, TopCoder Staff
Wednesday, December 3, 2003
Tonight, in a conference room filled with food, drink and plenty of tech related chatter, all eyes were on a few 16. Each one of these coders will be vying for the title of grand champion tomorrow as the final rounds of the 2003 TopCoder Open sponsored by Intel® commence. With more than 1,000 competitors participating six rounds earlier, these contestants have already come a long way. With $130,000 at stake, tensions should have been high when the coders came face to face. But they weren't.
The environment was fairly relaxing at the welcome reception. Representatives from NVIDIA and Revelation Software were on hand to mingle with the finalists and to assess the level of competition. Introductions were made. Tournament stories were told. Brainteasers were solved, and reinvented and solved again - warming up for the problems they will face tomorrow morning.
There are a lot of preparations to be made before the semi-finals begin. After the reception, the competitors retired to their rooms to recover from jetlag. Hopefully, butterflies won't keep them from their much-needed rest.