Morphy's blog

By Morphy, history, 4 years ago, In English

We invite you to participate in CodeChef’s April Long Challenge, this Friday, 2nd April, from 15:00 IST onwards.

The contest will be open for 10 days, i.e., until 12th April. I challenge you to get perfect score in 5h.

Gameskraft and Amazon are the official contest recruiters! Gameskraft is looking for Javascript and Frontend Developers from CodeChef and Amazon is hiring fresher and experienced programming talent for SDE 1, SDE 2, and SE roles across India.

If you have some original and engaging problem ideas, and you’re interested in them being used in CodeChef's contests, you can share them here.

Joining me on the problem setting panel are:

Prizes:

The winners will receive certificates and CodeChef laddus with which they can claim cool CodeChef goodies. Know more here.

The video editorials of the problems will be available on our YouTube channel as soon as the contest ends. Subscribe to get notifications about our new editorials.

See you in the ranklist!

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By Morphy, history, 4 years ago, In English

CC turned 1100 years!

We invite you to participate in CodeChef’s March Long Challenge, this Friday, 5th March, from 15:00 IST onwards.

The contest will be open for 10 days, i.e., until 15th March.

The March Long Challenge is going to have Codenation Innovation Labs, Quadeye Securities, Dialpad, and BetterPlace as the official contest recruiters! Codenation Innovation Labs is hiring programmers for the Software Development Engineer role and its Junior Trilogy University (Intern Programme). Quadeye is on the lookout for brilliant Full Stack Developers in CodeChef’s community. Dialpad is looking to attract top talent from CodeChef for the role of Software Engineer. BetterPlace is looking to hire competent coders from the community for SDE 1 and SDE 2 roles.

Also, if you have some original and engaging problem ideas, and you’re interested in them being used in CodeChef's contests, you can share them here.

Joining me on the problem setting panel are:

Prizes:

We are doubling the happiness this Long Challenge.

Since it's our birthday month, the Chef is in a generous mood. We shall be giving away prizes to double the number of winners than usual. For example: Instead of Top 10, Top 20 will get the winner laddus. This is applicable across all category winners.

There are also special prizes for women:

  • Div 1: top 10 females (300 laddus)
  • Div 2: top 6 females (150 laddus)
  • Div 3: top 6 females (150 laddus)

The winners can claim cool CodeChef goodies using these laddus. Know more here.

The video editorials of the problems will be available on our YouTube channel as soon as the contest ends. Subscribe to get notifications about our new editorials.

Good Luck!
Hope to see you participating!!
Happy Programming!!

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By Morphy, 4 years ago, In English

We invite you to participate in CodeChef’s February Long Challenge, this Friday, 5th February, from 15:00 IST onwards.

The contest will be open for 10 days i.e. until 15th February.

The February Long Challenge is going to have ByteDance and Codenation as the official contest recruiters! Yep, TikTok's parent company is going to be looking to hire for multiple positions for their Singapore office, including — Algorithm Engineers, Backend Engineers, Data Engineers, Data Scientist, Machine Learning Engineers, Research Scientists, Frontend Engineers, Quality Assurance Engineer, Research Engineers, Software Engineer, and Site Reliability Engineers. Codenation Innovation Labs is hiring programmers for the Software Development Engineer role and its Junior Trilogy University (Intern Programme).

Also, if you have some original and engaging problem ideas, and you’re interested in them being used in CodeChef's contests, you can share them here.

Joining me on the problem setting panel are:

Prizes:

Top 20 performers in the Indian category and top 10 performers in the Global category will get CodeChef laddus, with which the winners can claim cool CodeChef goodies. First to solve each problem except challenge — 100 laddus. Know more here

The video editorials of the problems will be available on our YouTube channel as soon as the contest ends. Subscribe to get notifications about our new editorials.

Good Luck!
Hope to see you participating!!
Happy Programming!!

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By Morphy, 4 years ago, In English

Hello 2021!

We invite you to participate in CodeChef’s January Long Challenge, this Friday, 1st January, from 15:00 IST onwards. The contest will be open for 10 days. We are introducing a brand new Division 3

If you have some original and engaging problem ideas, and you’re interested in them being used in CodeChef's contests, you can share them here.

Joining me on the problem setting panel are:

Prizes:

Top 20 performers in the Indian category and top 10 performers in the Global category will get CodeChef laddus, with which the winners can claim cool CodeChef goodies. First to solve each problem except challenge — 100 laddus. Know more here

The video editorials of the problems will be available on our YouTube channel as soon as the contest ends. Subscribe to get notifications about our new editorials.

Good Luck!
Happy new year!

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By Morphy, history, 4 years ago, In English

We invite you to participate in CodeChef’s November Long Challenge, this Friday, 6th November, from 15:00 IST onwards. The contest will be open for 10 days i.e. until 16th November.

Also, if you have some original and engaging problem ideas, and you’re interested in them being used in CodeChef's contests, you can share them here. Joining me on the problem setting panel are:

Prizes:

Top 20 performers in the Indian category and top 10 performers in the Global category will get CodeChef laddus, with which the winners can claim cool CodeChef goodies. First to solve each problem except challenge — 100 laddus. Know more here

The video editorials of the problems will be available on our YouTube channel as soon as the contest ends. Subscribe to get notifications about our new editorials.

Good Luck!
Hope to see you participating!!
Happy Programming !!

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By Morphy, history, 4 years ago, In English

We invite you to participate in CodeChef’s September Long Challenge, this Friday, 4th September, from 15:00 IST onwards. The contest will be open for 10 days i.e. until 14th September.

Also, if you have some original and engaging problem ideas, and you’re interested in them being used in CodeChef's contests, you can share them here.

Joining me on the problem setting panel are:

  • Setters & Editorialists: Ritesh rishup132 Gupta, Simon St James, Sahil sahi1422 Chimnani, Utkarsh Pandey, Kritagya krikti Agarwal, Tautvydas Tutis Jasiūnas, Navneel Singhal, Alei Morphy Reyes, Bohdan BohdanPastuschak Pastuschak
  • Tester: Suchan .o. Park
  • Statement Verifier: Jakub Xellos Safin
  • Mandarin Translator: Hanlin Ioser Ren
  • Vietnamese Translator: Team VNOI
  • Russian Translator: Fedor Mediocrity Korobeinikov
  • Bengali Translator: Mohammad solaimanope Solaiman
  • Hindi Translator: Akash Shrivastava

Prizes:

Top 20 performers in the Indian category and top 10 performers in the Global category will get CodeChef laddus, with which the winners can claim cool CodeChef goodies. First to solve each problem except challenge — 100 laddus. Know more here

Good Luck!
Hope to see you participating!!
Happy Programming !!

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By Morphy, history, 4 years ago, In English

We invite you to participate in CodeChef’s July Long Challenge, this Friday, 3rd July, from 15:00 IST onwards. The contest will be open for 10 days i.e. until 13th July.

We will also be hosting a live problem discussion sessions where our panelist, RestingRajarshi will discuss the Long Challenge problems on 13th July. Find more details here.

Also, if you have some original and engaging problem ideas, and you’re interested in them being used in CodeChef's contests, you can share them here.

Joining me on the problem setting panel are:

Prizes:

Top 20 performers in the Indian category and top 10 performers in the Global category will get CodeChef laddus, with which the winners can claim cool CodeChef goodies. First to solve each problem except challenge — 100 laddus. Know more here

Good Luck!
Hope to see you participating!!
Happy Programming !!

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By Morphy, 5 years ago, In English

CodeChef May Long Challenge starts in less than 42h. This time there will be 10 problems in div1 and 8 in div2. I challenge top coders to get perfect score in less than 8h.

The contest has a wide range of topics including sorting, strings, graphs, data structures, maths, ...

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By Morphy, history, 5 years ago, In English

CodeChef turned 1011 years old!

March Long starts in less than 110000h. This time we prepared 1100 puzzles, so you have to solve 1001 problems in each division.

There is a wide range of topics including interactive, constructive, games and graphs problems, ...

The setters are: 300iq, amnesiac_dusk, saurabhyadavz, VladProg, upobir, Vivek1998299, YouKn0wWho, Unknown_X, Morphy.

.o. tasted the problems and tmwilliamlin168 is in charge of the editorials.

Xellos did the statement improvements. Translations in Russian, Vietnamese, Bengali, Hindi and Mandarin are provided by Mediocrity, Team VNOI, solaimanope, Akash Shrivastava, Ioser

I challenge top coders to get perfect score in 5h.

See you in the ranklist!

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By Morphy, history, 5 years ago, In English

Hi Codeforces,

We are missing the hardest problems for the upcoming long challenges. If you have some interesting ideas send us a mail to problem.ideas@codechef.com, or via this form.

Take a look to the following problems to have a feeling of the difficulty.

CUREK, PBOXES, BCYCLES, LVMFFN, MXMN, CNNCT2

We would be very happy to receive problems of other difficulty levels too.

There are some problems in the queue for the easier problems, but if the idea is very original it can be quickly moved to the top.

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By Morphy, history, 5 years ago, In English

Codechef January Long Challenge starts in less than 24h.

I challenge top coders to AC everything in less than 5h.

See you in the ranklist!

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By Morphy, history, 5 years ago, In English

2019 was a semiprime year with great contests and some notorious coincidences.

This year I setted some tie-break problems for CodeChef Long Challenge, probably the most interesting and with real life applications was Bacteria Synthesis about generating proteins from a genome using reversals. I also liked Coloring Triangulations which is about moving from one triangulation to another by flipping edges.

From the exact problems I liked LOVEMUFFIN which is a nice ad hoc game, and Pretty Boxes a flow that can be simulated with segment trees.

I also saw many interesting simple problems like Hit the Coconuts a puzzle that can be solved with a dp trick, and my brute forces Ada Rooks.

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By Morphy, history, 5 years ago, In English

Greetings Codeforces!

Starting from 1st November gear up for 10 days of non-stop coding in the November Long Challenge 2019.

This is a perfect opportunity for you to foster your learning while competing with the best. All the problems will be available in English, Hindi, Bengali, Russian, Mandarin and Vietnamese.

Also, if you have any original and engaging problem ideas, and you’re interested in them being used in CodeChef's contests, you can share them here: www.codechef.com/problemsetting/new-ideas.

Joining me on the setting panel are:

Hope you enjoy the puzzles!


Congrats to the winners!

Div 1.

  1. ACRush, 1400 lines of code in the challenge problem!
  2. krismaz
  3. VivaciousAubergine
  4. wrong_answer_1
  5. -is-this-fft-

Div 2.

  1. why_no_girlfriend, 61 lines in the challenge problem?
  2. pyBlob
  3. Louhc
  4. beet
  5. adarshagr8

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By Morphy, history, 5 years ago, In English

Greetings Codeforces Community! CodeChef September Long Challenge is just around the corner. Everyone is encouraged to partake starting 6th September till 16th September. It is an occasion to put to test your exceptional programming skills.

The problem statements will be available in English, Hindi, Bengali, Russian, Mandarin and Vietnamese.

Accompanying me on the problem setting panel are:

In despite of having two chess "world champions" in the judge panel, this time there are no chess problems.

Hope to see you participating!

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By Morphy, 5 years ago, In English

Greetings Codeforces Community! We bring you the July Long Challenge 2019. Brace yourself for 10 intense days of non-stop coding challenge starting on 5th July.

All programmers across the globe are welcome to participate. Problems are available in English, Hindi, Bengali, Russian, Mandarin and Vietnamese.

If you have some original and interesting problem ideas, and want them to be used in CodeChef's contests, you can share them with our admins here: www.codechef.com/problemsetting/new-ideas

Joining me on the problem setting panel are:

Hope you enjoy the problems!

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By Morphy, history, 6 years ago, In English

CodeChef May Challenge will start in ~63h ( May 3 15:00 IST )

You will have 10 days to solve 8 puzzles. This time the problems are more accessible, so I expect a fierce battle in the approximation problem. See you in the ranklist!

The puzzles were cooked by

  • Setters: Danya Smelskiy (smelskiy), Lewin Gan (lg5293), Abhinav Jain (iamabjain), Vivek Chauhan (vivek_1998299), Xusheng Wang (wxs02wxs0103), Ashish Gupta (ashishgup), Vinay Katare (vinay_katare), Misha (mishaprigara), Alei Reyes (alei).
  • Testers: Arash (silversoul), Michael Nematollahi (watcher)
  • Editorialist: Alexander Kulkov (melfice)
  • Statement Verifier: Jakub Safin (xellos0)
  • Translators: Fedor Korobeinikov (gomelfk), Hu Zecong (huzecong), Team VNOI (songuku95), Mohammad Solaiman (solaimanope), Akash Srivastava (devils_code)

PS. If you are interested in setting problems for CodeChef, send your ideas to problems@codechef.com, or via this form. Alekhine reviews the odd proposals, and Alexey Shirov Zayakin the even ones.

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By Morphy, 6 years ago, In English

CodeChef January Cook-Off starts in ~72h (Sunday, 20th January, 2019 at 21:30 IST). As ussual you will have 5 puzzles to solve in 150 minutes.

The character of the contest is Ada — the most intuitive girl I have ever met.

I challenge top coders to get full score in topcoder time.

By the way, the contest clash with the north regional junior chess championship of my country, so to me seems like a notorious coincidence.

good fun and have luck!

Contest log:

  • -24:00:00. Pran found a corner case on ADAROKS that I didn't contemplate, We fixed our solutions ad added more data.
  • 00:05:45. 28 acs for ADASCOOL in div1 and 14 in div2, Atreus is leading in div1.
  • 00:15:00. Div2 users found the cakewalk problem, stefdasca is leading in div2. In div1 LHiC solved ADAMTR, his solution is similar to tester, I used 2-SAT as a blackbox.
  • 00:40:00. Internal Server Error :( now we know they upgraded their nginx to 1.4.7.
  • 00:43:00. CodeChef is up again, moreover Saiphani724 solved ADAMTR and is leading in div2. Pran predicts 4 perfect scores in div1, I predict 10.
  • 01:00:00. KrK solved ADAPWNS, now he is first and LHiC is second.
  • 01:12:00. LHiC aced ADAFUN, but he is still second because he didn't solved ADAPWNS, the problem is a trie dp, so its kind of standard.
  • 01:20:00. I noticed that my countrymate The_Blitz is participating in div2. It seems that having a chess handle is not helping him in the contest.
  • 01:32:00. uwi only solved 2 problems, did he gave up the contest after the server down?
  • 01:40:00. yashChandnani solved ADAFUN, now he is first!
  • 01:44:00. RAVEman solved ADAROKS, the top of the scoreboard in div1 is changing a lot!
  • 01:54:00. KrK solved ADAFUN and took the lead again, however I think RAVEman will winn, because he already solved ADAROKS which is harder.
  • 02:10:00. uwi is still on board it seems he had a hard time with ADAROKS, his solution fails on a case added by the tester (uwi, complain with pran), also I noticed that the educational hero awoo is taking part in the contest, he managed to solve ADAPWNS, and is in the top 20.
  • 02:21:00. I bet RAVEman will winn, Pran bets on LHiC.
  • 02:30:00. No participant got perfect score. Congrats to the winners!

Div 1:

 KrK

 LHiC

 RAVEman

Div 2:

 Saiphani724

 andrew_ucla

 stefdasca

I'll add some hints for solutions in my blog: https://aleigorithms.wordpress.com/2019/01/17/codechef-january-cook-off-2019/

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By Morphy, history, 6 years ago, In English

2018 was a semiprime year with great contests and some notorious coincidences.

From the problems that I proposed, my favourite was HAMEL, I invented it by mixing the definitions of eulerian and hamiltonian paths, the deterministic solution involves matroids, however many people solved it with randomization. Another problem of my hand that I liked was PWRTREE because it has a nice combinatorial solution by interpreting the digraph as an elimination tournament.

I didn't took part in CodeForces contests this year, but while training for snackdown I found an interesting problem in the Gym about constructing a maximum matching of line graphs.

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By Morphy, history, 6 years ago, In English

SnackDown 2018 elimination round starts in ~8 minutes. Top 300 get T-shirts

Let's discuss the problems after the contest!

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By Morphy, history, 6 years ago, In English

CodeChef October Mega-Cook Off 2018 starts in ~48h, (sunday 21 11:00 PET).

You will have 2.5h to solve 5 puzzles. My last contest was April Cook-off, ussually I only set one contest per year, so this year I broke the curse!

The character of the contest is Chef Ada, she is the most intuitive girl I have ever met. Sometimes she can solve a problem before I finish telling the statement!

Hope you enjoy the problems. See you in the ranklist!

Upd. This time there will be also statements in spanish. Spanish is a complex language, let's hope I didn't miss any accent mark:)

Contest log:

  • 11:08 many WAs in PUMPWAT. MaddyThakker takes the lead in div2.

  • 11:13 MegaBidoof ACed PUMPWAT, even tester had a couple of WAs in this problem

  • 11:24 kingofnumbers frightened me, numbers of equal height in the tests of PUMPWAT? false alarm, only the sample had a repeated element. Actually in the original version there was hills with equal height, but I decided to made the problem easier, and forgot to fix sample input.

  • 11:30 I just noticed zemen is in div2! with two div1 problems solved, he could be first in div1 in this moment.

  • 11:49 user:AlexDmitriev solved PWRTREE, he is still first

  • 12:00 zemen finally solved PWRTREE in div2

  • 12:31 KrK and uwi solving only two problems in a cc contest after 90 minutes? that is not often seen

  • 12:45 riadwaw solved ADASHOP, IMHO it took him too much time, there are no submissions for ADAFARM yet.

  • 12:56 The blue coder (3 stars) zemen :) got perfect score in div2, wondering if he could get perfect score in div1.

  • 13:22 hatter from belarus solved ADASHOP skipping PWRTREE, that was an wise decision, I think PWRTREE is harder. Now he is 4th in div2.

  • 13:27 ADAFARM has only one submission, and unfortunately it is RE (sorry Golovanov399)

  • 13:35 Congrats to the winners!

Div 1.

  1. riadwaw

  2. isaf27

  3. nuip

Div 2.

  1. zemen

  2. receed

  3. Januzaj497

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By Morphy, history, 6 years ago, In English

IPSC starts in ~12h (6 October 2018, 15:00 UTC).

Let's discuss the problems after the contest!

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By Morphy, history, 6 years ago, In English

CodeJam World Finals starts in less than 15h (Friday 11:30 PET).

What are your predictions?

Let's discuss the problems after the contest!

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By Morphy, history, 6 years ago, In English

HackerCup R2 starts in ~24h (August 04 12:00 PET).

Let's discuss the problems after the contest!

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By Morphy, history, 6 years ago, In English

The last online round of topcoder starts in less than 1h.

14 top coders qualify to the finals.

Let's discuss the problems after the contest!

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By Morphy, history, 6 years ago, In English

HackerCup R1 starts in ~24h (July 21 12:00 PET).

Let's discuss the problems after the contest!

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