YocyCraft's blog

First time becoming red
By YocyCraft, history, 20 months ago, In English

In yesterday's contest Codeforces Round 865 (Div. 1) I've got the achievement which I could not imagine just half a year ago — reach 2400 rating and become GM.

The first time I learned about CF was on 2022.2, that time I registered this account and took my first contest. But my first submission 146390589 on contest got TLE, and I solved 0 problem in this contest. (At that time I didn't know that's because the efficiency of java.util.Scanner is extremely low) And because I needed to deal with graduation thesis, I didn't use CF until the end of last year, when I restarted CF contest.

At 4th and 5th contests I solved div2D problems to reach blue. In my 9th contest, I first time solved div2E problem in contest, and I became purple in my 12th contest. In my 14th and 15th contest, I solved div2E problems twice and became orange. In the next weeks, I started to hit the upper limit of my skill, and dropped from orange twice.

In order to improve my skill of competive programming, I practiced problems in CF problemset everyday, and when practicing I tried to solve every problem with 2000-2500 difficulty by the reverse order in the problemset. I took part in every rated CF contest (except Codeforces Round 856 (Div. 2) which was timed at 01:35 UTC+8), and learned many new techniques from problems I could not solve in contests. I also used other CP platfroms like atcoder, where I've reached rating 2233.

It seems that practice was pretty effective for me. I got well performance in last 3 contests rated for div1, and first time became red yesterday. Although there's still a large promotion space for me, it's an important meaningful moment in my life of competitive programming. Hope that I will be more active to face the challange in the future.

Thank for MikeMirzayanov and every contributors of CodeForces community for bring me into the world of competitive programming and helping me find the meaning of my life.

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Comments Comments (31)
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20 months ago, # |
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I like your fast short editorial. The rate at which you are progressing is amazing.

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20 months ago, # |
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Congrats, your profile is an inspiration.

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20 months ago, # |
← Rev. 2   Vote: I like it +8 Vote: I do not like it

Congrats !

I tried to solve every problem with 2000-2500 difficulty by the reverse order in the problemset

wdym by "by the reverse order" ? and do you recommend such thing ?

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20 months ago, # |
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Congrats! It's inspirational to see your progress! How much time do you spend thinking about a problem before you decide to look at the editorial?

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    20 months ago, # ^ |
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    About half an hour I guess

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      20 months ago, # ^ |
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      half on hour for problems with 2000-2500 ratings? like how many time you could actually solve them in that period of time.

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20 months ago, # |
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Congratulations!

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20 months ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +25 Vote: I do not like it

Congratulations, reaching GM in 5 months is incredible. Did you have any math or programming bacground? Also how did you just suddenly start solving Div2D and Div2E

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20 months ago, # |
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Congratulations, you are inspiring many people. Could you please say how long do you try to solve a problem before reading editorial? And how much time do you spend for practicing every day (in average)?

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20 months ago, # |
← Rev. 2   Vote: I like it -39 Vote: I do not like it

Congratulations for the Red! hopefully you will make it blackish red (LGM) :) very soon...

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20 months ago, # |
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Thank you.

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20 months ago, # |
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Congratulations! well deserved

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    20 months ago, # ^ |
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    It looks like you will also be making GM pretty soon. :)

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20 months ago, # |
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first of all congratulations. but it really doesn't make sense to me that you got to red and only 5 times had a negative rating changes. unless you had some backgrounds in programming or something.

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    20 months ago, # ^ |
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    It's quite normal if you are already very good at maths. It means you have the skills to solve the problems, but you are not familiar with the format yet. So, you can become much better and faster in a few months.

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20 months ago, # |
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Congratulations. Your unofficial editorials after contest are very helpful. I am curious about how did you become grandmaster in 5 months. Did you previously do maths too much or what?

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20 months ago, # |
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Let's INVESTiGATE...

Tools of inv.: https://cftracker.netlify.app/contests, https://cfusersubmissions.vercel.app/.

Your assistance, since we'ra talking already, will be helpful. Can you tell your age range, please?: strictly under 20, 20-23 years old, strictly over 23. Thanks if. And if true). As for my strategy, well noone cares.

Oh, you are of 2002. As I thought. It will be interesting to see where your approach lead you. Good luck.

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20 months ago, # |
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Congrats !
You inspired me to try and break your record(still have 5 months left)

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20 months ago, # |
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Wow gj !!! I ll try your approach for some months, I ll solve from my rating +500 , (i.e 1400 to 1900) in their order in the problemset (not 1400 , 1500..) and I ll be back here to say if this works for me. thanks and Gj again !!

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20 months ago, # |
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755 problems in 6 months, that's some incredible dedication! Are you aiming for ICPC as a masters student or something?

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20 months ago, # |
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Congratulations! Also, looking at your profile I can see a lot of dark green squares, which is quite inspirational.

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20 months ago, # |
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Very inspiring progress! Good job!

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20 months ago, # |
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Congratulations! I spent 7 years training on Codeforces, and now I'm purple...

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20 months ago, # |
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Super inspiring, congrats!

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7 months ago, # |
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Congratulations on your new milestone in life. I also took the national informatics olympiad (I didn't take the codeforces contests so you don't see my rating). I will try your practice, solving problems with a rating of 2000-2500.

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