dgarthur poses in front of the scoreboard after winning the Final Round.

dgarthur takes home the crown

by MaryBeth Biondi, TopCoder Staff
Saturday, April 5, 2003
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In a final round that saw 11 out of a possible 12 submissions, it was dgarthur who posted the highest score and walked away $50,000 richer as the Champion.

The contest started off with Yarin, dgarthur and sjelkjd all opening the 250-point problem and dmwright opting to go with the 450. Yarin took the early lead with a quick submission of the 250-pointer for 237.49 points. He then moved on to the 450. sjelkjd was in next with his submission to the 250, getting 213.97 points. dgarthur brought in the lowest score on the 250 with his submission for 202.96 points. He and sjelkjd both moved on to the 450. Even before dmwright could log his first submission, Yarin sent in his second, adding 385.26 points from his 450. dmwright finally sent in his first submission for 303.43 points on the 450. He moved on to the 950, leaving the 250 for last. dgarthur made up some ground by receiving 381.34 points for his 450-point submission, and moved to the 950.

Yarin sent in the 7th submission of the round and added 760.04 points to his total. In an impressive move, dgarthur submitted his 950-point solution for 863.41 points and pulled ahead of Yarin by 65 points. dmwright logged his 2nd submission for 709.86 points on the 950, then went to work on the 250. sjelkjd sent in his only other submission, getting 232.11 points on the 450. dmwright sent in the 2nd highest 250-point submission for 231.85 points. At the end of the Coding Phase, the point totals stood as follows:

sjelkjd offered the only action of the Challenge Phase by unsuccessfully challenging all 3 950-point submissions and Yarin's 450-point submission. System tests proved that challenging any of the other competitor's submissions was in vain, as all submissions passed. The final scores looked quite similar to those at the end of the Coding Phase:

dgarthur was all smiles during the media hour, and rightfully so. He performed perfectly through two onsite rounds and beat six very worthy competitors in two days. Congratulations to dgarthur and the 15 other semi-finalists for a great weekend of coding!