Well, i solved 20 odd problem here on codeforces before appearing in my first tournament. The tournament was really an eye opener and i did learn a few things from it. I understood that the nature of the solution plays a huge role. I was initially excited that i could solve all the problems without a hitch. But then i realized that using brute force or the first solution that came to my mind wasn't enough. You needed a fairly efficient algorithm to solve it within the given time-limit; since i was using python, it only made things worse. I think i need to dive into data structures and algorithms to head up the ratings.