Ten years of Competitive Programming Hey Codeforces! I’m AmirReza PourAkhavan, Codeforces Contest Coordinator. I let the story become complete and I’m sharing it now. The story is about a 16-year competitive programmer, who left his family and migrated to another city alone to follow competitive programming. After seven years, he advanced to the International Collegiate Programming Contest World Finals, twice. ### Why I’m writing this Six years ago someone asked me [here](https://mirror.codeforces.com/blog/entry/45186?#comment-297837) to write my story. I think it can help you to never give up. ### A brief about me I've been doing competitive programming for ten years. I advanced to ICPC (International Collegiate Programming Contests) World Finals twice, in 2019 at Porto and 2020 at Moscow. At ICPC World Finals 2020, our team took high-honored place twenty-four, which is equal to the top 0.03% of 200k students participating in ICPC. <center> <br> <img width="50%" src="/predownloaded/c2/0c/c20c501bba688...

Full text and comments »

European Championship 2025 (EUC) <img src="/predownloaded/e7/67/e767414385f88f6336aeb5fec7be1e5a29454d35.png" style="width:250px; float:right; margin: 0 1em 1em 1em"/> The [European Championship 2025](https://euc.icpc.global/) will take place on the 2nd of March in Porto. The top teams from the European ICPC regionals CERC, NWERC, SEERC, SWERC will compete for the title of European champions. It is the second edition of this ICPC super-regional. The mirror contest [contest:2068] will be held on Codeforces at [contest_time:2068] and will last 5 hours. The mirror contest will feature the same problems as the official competition, except for one problem, which will be presented in a more challenging version. I am the chief judge for the competition and I want to thank: - The amazing set of judges who proposed and prepared the problems: [user:bicsi,2025-02-07], [user:cip999,2025-02-07], [user:cdkrot,2025-02-07], [user:Egor,2025-02-07], [user:gangsterveggies,2025-02-07], [user:giove,2025-02-07], [user:Jork...

Full text and comments »

Educational Codeforces Round 61 [Rated for Div. 2]  Hello Codeforces! On [contest_time:1132] [contest:1132] will start. This round is organised in collaboration with Hello Muscat Programming Bootcamp and supported by Sberbank, General Partner of the boot camp and one of the largest banking leaders of Eastern Europe, providing thousands of jobs and innovation in the financial industry. As the Hello Muscat Programming Bootcamp’s General Partner, Sberbank made it possible for students from some of the world’s top universities to attend the bootcamp, by sponsoring their participation. This includes students from Saint-Petersburg State University, Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT), Penza State University, National Research Mordovia State University; MRSU, ITMO, Higher School of Economics / Moscow, Volgograd State Technical University, Lobachevsky State University of Nizhni Novgorod, Moscow Aviation Institute, Tyumen industrial University, University of Haifa, Northern (Arctic...

Full text and comments »

ICPC WF 2019 Challenge Issue Hello everyone! As many of you might notice, there is a new event in an ICPC WF schedule this year. <spoiler summary="description by ICPCNews"> Announcing the #ICPC2019 Neural Network Challenge &mdash; Powered by Huawei https://icpc.baylor.edu/compete/challenge Train your own neural network. Top trainers win a Huawei laptop or mobile phone. Everybody gets cool Huawei swag like USB keys, digital cables, etc. The ICPC Neural Network Challenge &mdash; Powered by Huawei &mdash; will be held at the ICPC World Finals on 2 April 13:00-16:00 in Porto, Portugal. World Finals teams will compete to see who can best train a given neural network. The specifics of the problem will be revealed during the contest. The teams with the best trained (highest accuracy) neural networks will be recognized as ICPC Challenge Winners. The top teams will also receive great prizes for each contestant. Prizes include Huawei Matebook X Pro, Huawei Mate20 Pro, and Huawei P20 Pro. Now for som...

Full text and comments »

ICPC Connections, Porto edition Hey all! We'll be running [ICPC Connections](https://lunchclub.ai/icpc) this year at World Finals! ICPC Connections is powered by Lunchclub and is a way for contestants, coaches, and alums at World Finals to get to meet one another. We first ran Lunchclub at ICPC last year (thanks [user:M.Mahdi,2019-03-31] for the shoutout!) and are excited to be back. If you're in Porto this week and would be interested to meet fellow attendees, sign up at [lunchclub.ai/icpc](https://lunchclub.ai/icpc)! And if you're curious to learn more about what we're working on, check out our main product [here](https://lunchclub.ai/?invite_code=CODEFORCES) :)

Full text and comments »

How to be red: Arpa [user:Arpa,2021-02-28]'s interview: _-Salam AmirReza_ -Salam Natalia _-Do you remember becoming red?_ -Yes, exactly one year ago, for the first time, I touched red just with 2405 :)) [cut] _._ _-Did you celebrate it?_ -For sure, I celebrated it in my mind for several days. But if you mean a real celebration, with others' participation and some sweet, drink and food, no. I was in my hometown at that time, and my little brother and my parents became happy. _-Was becoming red the most special for you, or getting some other color was more emotional?_ -I remember when I reached Candidate Master. I was 15 at that time. Note that at that time, purple was starting from 1700. That was very nice. But for sure, becoming red was much more emotional. _-What color was your goal when you started?_ -I rarely had a goal. Becoming red became my goal in 2019. Especially, I never imagined that I could sometime reach IGM. I exactly remember the contest Globa...

Full text and comments »

XIII UnB Contest Mirror Hello, Codeforces! We are happy to invite you to the [contest:106159] on [contest_time:106159]. This contest was originally held at [University of Brasília](https://www.unb.br/), during our annual [University Week](https://dex.unb.br/semanauniversitariaunb). **This contest is a Codeforces Gym, and therefore is NOT an official Codeforces Round and is NOT rated.**. The contest will follow standard ICPC rules. The problems were created and prepared by: - Arthur Botelho (me) - Eduardo Freire ([user:duduFreire,2025-11-02]) - Eduardo Quirino ([user:cebolinha,2025-11-02]) - Emerson Cruz ([user:emersonjr02,2025-11-02]) - Maxwell Oliveira ([user:Maxwell01,2025-11-02]) - Pedro Avila Beneveli ([user:PedroPacoca,2025-11-02]) - Wilson Guimarães ([user:Vilsu,2025-11-02]) - Professor Daniel Porto ([user:dporto,2025-11-02]) - Professor Edson Alves ([user:edsomjr,2025-11-02]) - Professor Guilherme Ramos ([user:gnramos,2025-11-02]) - Professor Jeremias Gomes ([user:j3r3mias,2025-11...

Full text and comments »

Northern Eurasia Finals 2018 Olá a todos! <img src="/predownloaded/a3/af/a3afaa7ef284be4ce1de9c89fd544778f4f2c828.jpg" align="right" style="height: 260px; margin: 10px;" alt="text"/> <a style="font-size: 20.0px;padding: 8.0px 14.0px;background-color: rgb(55, 109, 171);color: white;" href="http://neerc.ifmo.ru/archive/2018/standings.html">Current Standings</a> The first winter weekend of the year would be tough for students who arrive to St. Petersburg, Barnaul, Almaty and Tbilisi. On the 1-2 of December ITMO University, Altai State Technical University, European University and Kazakh-British Technical University will host the final contest of [Northern Eurasia] (http://neerc.ifmo.ru). Participants are going to face a serious competition – they will fight for the right to represent their university on the finals of the [ICPC 2019] (https://icpc2019.up.pt/) in April in Portugal. At the ITMO University stage we also expect 131 teams, including the Champions and Vice-Champions (but, worth mentioning, NEERC...

Full text and comments »

Teams going to ACM-ICPC World Finals 2019 Completed List! [user:Luqman,2019-01-30] said he [isn't creating a chart](https://mirror.codeforces.com/blog/entry/64899?#comment-488294) of teams going to ACM-ICPC this year as he isn't competing, so I added in all the teams. Let's complete the table together! For the teams where I don't know the cf handles of the team members, I put their names instead. Europe ====== | Count | Country | Region | University | Member 1 | Member 2 | Member 3 | | ----- | ------- | ------ | ---------- | -------- | -------- | -------- | | 1 | Romania | SEERC | Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iași | [user:Juve45,2019-01-31] | [user:Cristian1997,2019-01-31] | [user:Sin,2019-01-31] | | 2 | Switzerland | SWERC | ETH Zürich | [user:TimonKnigge,2019-03-08] | [user:zaspagety,2019-03-08] | Stefanie Zbinden | | 3 | Netherlands | NWERC | Leiden University | [user:pimsp,2019-03-08] | Onno Berrevoets | Daan van Gent | | 4 | Ukraine | SEERC | National Technical University "Kharkiv Polytechnic Institute" | [user:vlad8,2019-02-0...

Full text and comments »

ICPC 2019 World Finals mirror stream ICPC 2019 World Finals take place tomorrow on Thursday at approximately 11:30 Porto time ([click for other timezones](https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?msg=ICPC+2019+World+Finals&iso=20190404T1130&p1=320&ah=5)). Just like [last](https://youtu.be/BZo23gj9ksk) [two](https://youtu.be/nF3tSkNWRVQ) years, we'll try to solve it in parallel with [user:tourist,2019-04-04] and [user:Endagorion,2019-04-04], and stream the process, assuming the problems will be available for submission [on Kattis](https://judge.icpc.global/problems). Tune in [on Youtube](https://youtu.be/X6YdKQspOBk)!

Full text and comments »

Новости Факультета Компьютерных Наук ВШЭ В этом году первый набор [Факультета Компьютерных Наук](http://bit.ly/25msmZi) заканчивает третий курс, у них прошел первый год специализаций (предыдущие посты про новости ФКН: [1](http://mirror.codeforces.com/blog/entry/45054), [2](http://mirror.codeforces.com/blog/entry/18801), [3](http://mirror.codeforces.com/blog/entry/17195), [4](http://mirror.codeforces.com/blog/entry/12859), [5](http://mirror.codeforces.com/blog/entry/11918)). Все студенты 3-го года обучения прошли курс по машинному обучению от [Евгения Соколова](https://www.hse.ru/staff/esokolov) (автора известной [специализации на Coursera](https://goo.gl/1nf8KS) и руководителя отдела машинного обучения сервиса [Яндекс.Дзен](https://goo.gl/Pnzp7S)). Если вы еще учитесь в школе, то вы можете послушать Евгения в [летней школе ФКН](https://goo.gl/0Ztkqf); также он отвечает за преподавание машинного обучения в [августовской параллели A-ML ЛКШ](http://lksh.ru/sis/2017/parallel-a.shtml). Также общим был курс методов оптимизации, состоявший из непрерывной части ...

Full text and comments »

Special Prize for “Goodbye 2018” Round  <br> <br> **Hello, Codeforces!** Happy Holidays from us at Harbour.Space University, and good luck on the [contest:1091] round This year’s Final Round has a special prize &mdash; as you might know, we’ve prepared a new installment to the “Hello! Programming Bootcamps”...this time, our destination is the pearl of the Middle East — **Muscat**, Oman. So, **as a special prize for this Final Codeforces Round**, the **top 3 participants**, who are also eligible for ICPC 2019/2020 season, will be **invited to form a team and join us in Oman for the [2019 “Hello Muscat!” Programming Bootcamp](https://in.harbour.space/icpc/icpc-hello-muscat-bootcamp-2019/?utm_source=codeforces)** in 9 — 15 of March — sponsored with their participation fees, accommodation, and meals for the entire duration of the bootcamp (except flights)! Registering to the the round you will be asked to confirm your eligibility for ICPC 20...

Full text and comments »

About ACM ICPC 2019 host (Held on Porto) Does somebody know where will be held? Why have they taken so long to announce it? As far as I know, the host of next competition is always announced formally at the closing ceremony, but this wasn't the case at Beijing 2018. Has this happened before? I am just asking out of curiosity :) **Update** There hasn't been an official announcement, but Bill Poucher said (kinda) that it will be held on Porto! You can read his "announcement" [here](https://www.quora.com/Where-will-ICPC-2019-be-held) **Second update** ICPC has made an official announcement on ICPCNews! You can see the facebook post [here](https://www.facebook.com/ICPCNews/photos/a.460599613979709/2037903712915950/?type=3&theater) Yay!

Full text and comments »

Announcement: 1st "Hello Muscat!" Programming Bootcamp <img src="/predownloaded/1a/94/1a94ea2b893267ca66a4b806b0a8e2259d6be4f3.png"/> Hello, Codeforces! We are pleased to announce **the 1st "Hello Muscat!" ICPC Programming Bootcamp**, organised by [Harbour.Space University](https://harbour.space/?utm_source=Codeforces) with [Moscow Workshops ICPC](https://it-edu.mipt.ru/pages/workshops?lang=en) in collaboration with [Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology](https://mipt.ru/en/), [ITMO University](http://en.ifmo.ru/en/), [Saint Petersburg State University](http://english.spbu.ru/), [GUTech University](https://www.gutech.edu.om/), and of course Codeforces! The Bootcamp's Gold Sponsor is [Phaze Ventures](https://phazeventures.com), a venture capital firm and innovation platform based in Oman. The Bootcamp’s General Partner is [Sberbank](https://www.sberbank.ru/en/), the largest Russian bank and leading innovator. <br> <br> <center> <img src="/predownloaded/22/f2/22f2579e27e0e871018500a07a95b0864b9420e6.jpeg" width="500pt" alt=...

Full text and comments »

Presenting Algorithmically Speaking Over a year ago, I created a blog about algorithms, covering data structures, graphs, and dynamic programming, to get people interested in Computer Science and Software Engineering. With 1300+ subscribers, 1700+ followers on the Substack app, and 36 articles later, I decided to share it with the Codeforces community, where I honed my problem-solving skills. This platform certainly played a fundamental part in my Competitive Programming journey, leading to my participation in two ICPC World Finals (Porto 2019, Moscow 2020), where I achieved decent results. This post is a call for readers and collaborators. If you share a passion for algorithms, problem-solving, crafting software, or even more theoretical and philosophical topics in Computer Science, I invite you to join me on this journey. My blog covers a wide range of topics, from data structures and graphs to dynamic programming, and I'm open to exploring new areas based on your interests. I want to share this journey with you, wh...

Full text and comments »

Moscow Pre-Finals Workshop ICPC will be held on 9-17 March 2019  From 9 to March 17, 2019, Moscow training camp for the ICPC finalists will be held for the seventh time at the MIPT. The strongest programmers from different countries, including China, Mexico and the United States, under the guidance of experienced coaches will be trained for the most prestigious programming competition ICPC, its final will take place from 31 March to 5 April in Porto, Portugal. “During past six years Moscow Workshops ICPC has been helping students to make a dream of every olympiad programmer come true &mdash; to win the medals of the ICPC. Spring boot camps, traditionally held prior to the ICPC finals, become the conclusive preparatory stage for the participants, so we suggest the most effective training program, participation in which will lead to a successful performance in the final”, Alexey Maleev, founder of Moscow Workshops ICPC. The workshops will be held in English in the form...

Full text and comments »

ICPC World Final participant 2019 — Early arrival Hi there :) Me and my team have arrived today at Porto. We would love to meet with others team who arrived earlier like us :) We'll be near of the center of Porto, let us know if you want to have a drink with us or do some free tours. The goal of this is just chill and have fun. 

Full text and comments »

2019 ICPC World Finals I have added the ICPC World Final contest that was held in Porto in April 2019 to the gym [here](https://mirror.codeforces.com/gym/102511). I have used SnapDragon solutions as model solutions and the same data set as in the finals. Enjoy.

Full text and comments »

SWERC 2015 is this weekend! Hi everyone, The ACM ICPC Southwestern European Regional Contest will be held this weekend in Porto, Portugal. Who's competing this year? I'll be one of the judges, can't wait :) Cheers

Full text and comments »

Teams going to ICPC WF 2024 (Kazakhstan 2024) — WIP List Hi there! While we're waiting for the formal invitations to the ICPC World Final 2024 &#127880;, let's start the new post for the incoming competition, keeping the same idea of the previous blogs. Please add a comment with your team information and I will add it to the post. Info preferred: **{Handles on CF (otherwise, real name), Region, Country, University}** If you see some mistake on the teams, any kind of correction would be appreciated &#128516; </table> # Top 15 Over-All <table><thead><tr><th>Rank</th> <th>Country/Region</th><th>University</th> <th>Member1</th> <th>Member2</th> <th>Member3</th> <th>Rating</th></tr> </thead> <tr><td>1</td><td>USA</td><td>Swarthmore College</td><td>[user:Geothermal,2024-09-08]</td><td>[user:silxi,2024-09-08]</td><td>[user:nitrousoxide,2024-09-08]</td><td>3569.1801 </td></tr> <tr><td>2</td><td>China</td><td>Tsinghua University</td><td>[user:Rebelz,2024-09-08]</td><td>[user:qazswedx2,2024-09-08]</td><td>[user:hehezhou,2024-09-08]...

Full text and comments »

d coach Ancelotti participating d coach Ancelotti participating ho to take 45 wins 56 games 6 draws and 5 losses, scoring 151 goals, lost only 42 balls, winning up to 80.36%. In the history of Real Madrid, Ancelotti was the highest winning coach, are higher than Jose Mourinho, <a href="http://www.airfreeshoes.es/nike-free-40-v3-c-13.html">nike free 4.0 v3 hombre</a> Fabio Capello, Bosque, Guus Hiddink, Di Stefano, who Valdano.Whether it is the big winner as a player or coach, Carlo Ancelotti is the Champions League. Age of the players, Ancelotti at AC Milan validity period, two in 1989 and 1990 to win the military Cup. As a coach, Carlo Ancelotti had three degrees (2003, 2005 and 2007) led Milan reached the Champions League final, and has twice defeated Juventus and Liverpool Champions League aspirations. Milan Champions League once had said DNA, Ancelotti is also true, as a player and coach him four degrees aspirations Champions (Champions League) champion, Lisbon May 25, he will impact the individual football car...

Full text and comments »

Teams going to ICPC WF 2023 (Egypt 2023, 2nd final) — WIP List Hi again! As we decided in [the other blog](https://mirror.codeforces.com/blog/entry/116946), let's have two differents lists, one per WF that will be held on Egypt. We'll fill this post with teams of **THE SECOND WF** in Egypt, assuming that those are the qualified from Regionals 2022/2023. Please add a comment with your team information and I will add it to the post. Info preferred: **{Handles on CF (otherwise, real name), Region, Country, University}** If you see some mistake on the teams, any kind of correction would be appreciated, also if you see here a team that belongs to the other post (or viceversa), let me know. </table> # Top 15 Over-All <table><thead><tr><th>Rank</th> <th>Country/Region</th><th>University</th> <th>Member1</th> <th>Member2</th> <th>Member3</th> <th>Rating</th></tr> </thead> <tr><td>1</td><td>Japan</td><td>&#129353; Tokyo Institute of Technology</td><td>[user:potato167,2024-05-01]</td><td>[user:tatyam,2024-05-01]</td><td>[user:noshi91,2024-05-...

Full text and comments »

Final ICPC World Finals 2019 Team Ratings — What is your prediction? <table><thead><tr><th>Rank</th> <th>Country or Region</th> <th>University</th> <th>Member1</th> <th>Member2</th> <th>Member3</th> <th>Team Rating</th></tr> </thead> <tr> <td>1</td> <td>Russia</td> <td>Moscow State University</td> <td>[user:LHiC,2019-04-01]</td> <td>[user:V--o_o--V,2019-04-01]</td> <td>[user:V--gLaSsH0ldEr593--V,2019-04-01]</td> <td>3441.929</td> </tr> <tr> <td>2</td> <td>USA</td> <td>Massachusetts Institute of Technology</td> <td>[user:xyz111,2019-04-01]</td> <td>[user:ecnerwala,2019-04-01]</td> <td>[user:ksun48,2019-04-01]</td> <td>3336.429</td> </tr> <tr> <td>3</td> <td>Japan</td> <td>The University of Tokyo</td> <td>[user:sigma425,2019-04-01]</td> <td>[user:maroonrk,2019-04-01]</td> <td>[user:yosupo,2019-04-01]</td> <td>3118.398</td> </tr> <tr> <td>4</td> <td>Poland</td> <td>University of Warsaw</td> <td>[user:Radewoosh,2019-04-01]</td> <td>[user:Chameleon2460,2019-04-01]</td> <td>[user:oxytocyna,2019-04-01]</td> <td>3059.272</td> </tr> <tr> <td>5</td> <td>Sout...

Full text and comments »