How can you possibly top this?
11.15.06 3:00 PM


By Churchillio
TopCoder Member

The morning started for all round 1 semi-finalists at 8:30, when they were given a half hour each to prepare their macros and set up the editors they would be using to code. There was a fairly wide spread of editors used by the competitors -- just some examples were tomek using gvim, reid using xemacs, Vedensky using notepad++, and gozman using jedit. After the setup, all the first rounders were gathered in a line for the big picture and introduction in front of the big screen. As “the movie voice guy” called out all of their names and hometowns, they each walked back to their seating positions.

At the start many were gathered around the top seeder coders such as ACRush, tomek, and Ying. Many people first crowded around ACRush's machine as he was testing problem 1 very quickly. ACRush and tomek both submitted the 250 point problem within about a minute, for 243 and 238 points respectively. ACRush then went for the 1000-point problem while tomek went for the 600. Most of the competitors who solved the first problem went for the 600, with just ACRush, reid, falagar and Ying going for the 1000 point problem second.

ACRush had the first 1000 point submission for 693 points at 9:22, but he then continued to run custom test cases for about 15 minutes before moving on to the next problem. People were wondering whether he was having second thoughts about his submission, due to the test cases he was running. He put multiple checks in his code and tried to break it until he decided it was good. He then went back to the first problem and looked at that for a minute before opening the 600 point problem. A group of about 8 people had gathered around the big screen in the back where they were reading problems 2 and 3, trying to figure them out on paper as the contestants were coding.

reid was the next to submit a second problem. He submitted the 1000 point problem and immediately opened the 600 point question at 9:39. Ying was the third submitter of the 1000 point problem for 583 points at 9:49. Most of the competitors now had problem 2 open including tomek, who was still working at test cases. Many of the spectators crowded around the monitors thought there was a fairly simple binary search solution to the second problem, but realized that since nobody else had gotten it there must be something they were missing. bjacoke001 was the first person to submit problem 2 after passing the given test cases at 9:50 for 550 points. Quickly after this, halyavin submits problem 2 at the same time Vedensky submits problem 3.

At around 9:58 AM some laughter came from ACRush's screen as his test cases were returning -1 instead of 10^7, and 10^24 instead of -1. The test cases for most people for problem 2 just didn't seem to be agreeing with them. As this was going on there was a surprising submission by gozman, who took the current lead by submitting problem 3. Around the same time, tomek had abandoned problem 2 to take a stab at problem 3. People were now gathered around tomek's screen in order to see if he was implementing the same solution others had done for their problem 3 submissions, which he seemed to be doing.

The leader board remained unchanged until around 10:22, with 4 minutes left halyavin submitted problem 2 -- the first coder with all 3 completed. He seemed confident at this submission, since he then maximized the leader board on his screen and leaned back in his chair. With 45 seconds left, reid submitted problem 2 for all 3 problems submitted and the current lead. Frantically typing, the only other coder to have a last minute submission was bjacoke001, who submitted problem 3 with only 3 seconds left on the timer.

There was now a 5 minute break before the challenge phase, during which everyone crowded around the two main screens at the front of the room to await the challenges. Ying had two quick first challenges, one correct and one incorrect. Cheers went up as Ying then got another correct challenge. Tomy then had two quick correct challenges, as well as falagar and AdrianKuegel who each had a correct challenge. Then the place went nuts as Ying had two more correct challenges, and then a final challenge vs. reid's second problem to bring Ying from 6th place up to first. With the challenge phase now over and Ying doing an amazing job on the challenges, everyone gathered around once again to awaiting the system tests.

As the TopCoder staff walked in with the results in hand, they showed the system tests one at a time from the last place contestant up to the first. A few contestants failed the first problem, but not a whole lot changed in terms of standings. With the last 6 contestants each solving problem 1 and problem 3, the system test meter steadily went through its paces. Each of the contestants got green checks in front of problem 1 and problem 3, and the crowd dutifully applauded. Then, I heard truly shocked gasps as I looked up and saw a red X in front of tomek's problem 3. People stopped clapping for a moment as tomek slid to 7th place, just one spot outside of the wildcard round. The first place seed would be completely knocked out of the tournament unless Ying or ACRush failed their system tests... but they didn't. They clinched the top 2 spots and a spot in the finals. It was a huge upset in the first round and just goes to show that absolutely nobody is safe until the system tests are completed.

If you want to see a video of the reaction of the crowd to the system tests, check it out: