Hello, this is Egor. Today we are starting previewing some teams from ACM ICPC World Finals in Marrakech that, by my opinion, have most chances to win gold medals. First to go is Lviv National University team LNU Penguins.

Some trivia: Lviv NU participated just 2 times, but got gold one of those times, in 2008. One of participants of that team, Vasyl Biletsky, is current team's coach (but we should note that he actually was his own team's coach in 2008 as well).

This year team qualified to World Finals as winners of SEERC. They are currently 11th in OpenCup standings (do note, however, that there are many teams in that standing that are not ICPC eligible for one reason or another).

Roman Bilyi (TC: 2513, CF: 2672) participated in Russian Code Cup Finals in 2014 and won Bronze in Snarknews Winter Series 2015

Vitaliy Herasymiv (TC: 2206, CF: 2356) won Silver in IOI 2012

Bohdan Pryshchenko (TC: 2269, CF: 2348) won Gold in Snarknews Winter Series this year and Silver in Summer Series last year.

I believe this team has decent chance to clench gold, about 60%, while their chances to win are slim, about 1% or so.

Stay tuned for tomorrow as we will look at our next team from University of Zagreb!

Create your own ICPC cheering party, join one in you city or just follow ACM ICPC World Finals Live

Final scoreboard

Introduction

Arrival

History

Some photos from contest and closing ceremony

Interview with Bayan CEO Ali Ghadiri and some photos from the event will be published tomorrow

Places 10-15 received bronze medals

Top 3 receive gold medals. Silver medals for next several places: 4. Adrian Budau 5. Peyman Jabbarzade 6. Pooya Zafar. Places 7-9 also received silver medals, unfortunately I could not keep up with announcers

Nikola Djokic is third!

Ali Haghani is second. Congratulations!

And the winner is Evgenii Kapun aka eatmore

Winners will be announced shortly!

Speeches, videos and performances — all the usual things for closing ceremony.

Closing ceremony is underway. We'll know winners shortly

Scoreboard is frozen

3:01 Contest is over. Congratulations to all finalists and good job

2:32 Last half hour is upon us which mean no more updates to scoreboard. Come back tomorrow for closing ceremony and winners announcement

2:22 Eugene solved G as well. Would it be enough to clench the title?

2:15 Meanwhile Ali Haghani continues to try to solve problem H

2:05 Problem D is penultimate problem to be solved thanks to Peyman Jabbarzade. Less than an hour left in the contest, scoreboard will be frozed for the last 30 minutes

1:53 Problem G is solved as well. Only problems D and F are unsolved (though I solved them both during test run)

1:39 And finally he is successful. Meanwhile Ali Haghani tries to solve H. No luck as of yet

1:34 eatmore still debugging E — one of his asserts fails

1:22 eatmore debugging samples on E. This is also the problem I had not solved during test round (and still don't know how to solve)

1:18 No much happening near the top at the moment

1:00 One more problem is "opened" — problem C. Kudos to Ali Haghani

0:50 39 finalists solved first problems while 12 — second

0:40 During test run I solved 6 problems, but H was not one of them (I solved it within half hour afterwards though)

0:30 Top 5 solved 2 problems

0:23 A lot of correct submissions on problem A, problems B and H are also "opened"

0:10 Eryx tries to tackle first problem as well, but not successful yet

0:08 But we have our first Accepted. Congratulations to Ali

0:06 Most participants just read problem statements (there are paper ones), not yet trying to code anything

0:01 Contest is started

-0:17 Contest likely to start in 17 minutes

-?:?? Test contest is still underway

-?:?? Contest is delayed. Currently short test round is conducted. Finalists set up their equipment

-0:13 Last preparations are made. Participants waiting in the hotel lobby

-0:52 Participants had finished their breakfast and will shortly arrive to contest area

-3:00 Finals are supposed to start in 3 hours. Stay tuned

This year is 3rd edition of Bayan Contest.

Inaugural contest took place in 2011. About 800 university and high school students from all Iran tried to qualify for the finals through 2 online rounds and best 30 of them participated in the finals at Bayan offices in Tehran. Seyed Hamed Valizadeh won university stundents contest while Saeed Ilchi won high school part.

Next time Bayan decided to hold international contest. Codeforces was used to select international participants while Bayan's own system was used for selecting Iranian finalists as well as for the final itself. This time 1286 participants from 54 countries and 1728 from Iran tried to qualify and 8 international and 16 local finalists arrived to Parsian Azadi Hotel on February 16th 2013 in order to decide who is the best. peter50216 won the contest, cerealguy was second and I took the third place

This year 10266 participants from 103 countries tried to qualify. Tomorrow 60 finalists will once again clench for the title in Parsian Azadi Hotel conference room. Who will be the winner? Post your favorite in the comments.

Yesterday we arrived to Tehran Imam Khomeini International Airport.

eatmore was on my plane from Moscow, while we also met Ra16bit in the airport who arrived from Minsk.

After rather long process of aquiring visa and going through passport control (we arrived at 3:25 AM, but only got in taxi at 6:20) we got to the Parsian Evin Hotel where participants would live. Contest itself would take place in nearby Parsian Azadin Hotel.

After sleepless night I slept for most of the day.

Stay tuned for updates as today is excursions day.

Hi there!

As you probably know this is the second time Bayan opens it's programming competition to international coders. 2 years ago I participated myself and ended up taking 3rd place. This time around I'll be your blogger.

In this first post I want to give you some useful tips and links to know more about Iran and, if you won trip to Iran, what would you need to know.

Iran is a country with very rich history. Through the ages it participated in Greco-Persian wars, accepted Islam, was under Shah rule and now known as Islamic Republic of Iran since revolution in 1979.

Tehran, capital of Iran, is modern city, but with a lot of historic places throughout the city, like palaces of last Iranian Shahs, which is now museum complex or Grand Bazaar, both of which contestants visited 2 years ago.

As for food, get ready for some tasteful Iranian cuisine. I'd especially recommend lamb kebab.

Now, if you want to use your usual websites like Facebook while in Iran I'd recommend to take care of VPN service in advance. There are many options around Internet.

Finally if you want to stay online while on the go in Tehran I'd recommend visit this page about SIM-cards and data plans in Iran (refer to comment section).

Just fyi. Migration ended

CHelper new home YAAL new home

You are welcome to contribute in either

Hi!

I can't solve this зproblem. My code:

#include <iostream>

using namespace std;

int main() {
  int a, b;
  cin >> a >> b;
  int ans = 0;
  for (int i = 0; i < a; i++) ans++;
  for (int i = 0; i < b; i++) ans++;
  cout << ans << endl;
  return 0;
}

Please help

Hello from Berlin!

Get ready for some action as participants are ready to battle for Grand Prize of 300000 russian roubles and coveted title of Yandex.Algorithm champion

Stay tuned for live commentaries

If you have any questions about the competition feel free to ask. Competition starts at 11:30 CET, about an hour from now. Currently participants set up their PCs

-0:33 — We have quite tough field this year including ACM ICPC World Champions, TCO, GCJ and IOI winners. snarknews had provided some info on finalists here

-0:10 — Contest is delayed for 10 minutes

-0:09 — You can follow live results here

-0:05 — Currently contest area is filled with several journalists and cameramen

0:01 — Contest had been started, participants reading problems atm

0:11 — Petr and cerealguy

0:16 — there are several submits on D, some blind and some open. and 1 submit on both B and E, blind

0:19 — peter50216 is gettings TLEs on problem D, seems like map just do not cut it

0:23 — First submit on A. Also second one on B. All submits not on D are blind now

0:24 — marek.cygan is first one to submit 2 problems and currently in the lead

0:26 — Problem A is a tricky one — sometimes you need to add something for stack before removing

0:30 — tourist and eatmore

0:32 — During test run I solved A, B and D during the contest and C a couple of minutes later, though I have seen A and B before

0:33 — Currently marek.cygan, pperm, s-quark and LayCurse are in lead with 2, while usual favorites have only one problem under their belt

0:36 — Some more subbmits, most of participants with 2 solved D and either B or E, though there are also one blind submission on A

0:42 — Merkurev may spend a lot of time on A as currently he have the mistake I mentioned. To his defence authors originaly made the very same mistake

0:44 — A lot of photos made by some professionals

0:46 — Contest almost reached its equator, and we have out first participant with 3 problems — s-quark. He solved all the usual suspects — B, D and E

0:50 — vepifanov joined him, though remeber — as Yandex empoyee he participates out of competition

0:51 — And now we have someone we sure solved 3 problems — peter50216

1:00 — Both Petr and tourist are now in group of people who solved 3

1:01 — eatmore is actually quite close to solve A — he only needs to understand that sometimes it is good to make 2048

1:04 — SirShokoladina has most chances to be first to solve 4 as he still have B to submit. Also Eryx is the first one to solve C, he uses all open tactics and guaranteed to has at least 3 problems

1:07 — Seems like polish participants have good 3D imagination — pparys solves C as well

1:08 — And first submit from GCJ and TCO champion rng_58 — correct solution on F. We now have at least blind submits on all problems

1:13 — Petr and origami

1:14 — And s-quark claims the lead with 4 problems. He solved A

1:16 — As evident from the posted image Petr works on C

1:18 — And peter50216 joins him with all open submits

1:21 — 3 people with 4 tasks — are this our winners?

1:22 — Though one of them participates out of competition, so no

1:27 — Both Petr and tourist debugging problem C

1:29 — And Petr takes the lead with submit on C

1:31 — The contest currently fulfills all 4 criterias for ideal one — everyone solved something, nobody solved everything, every problem is solved by someone, no problem is solved by everyone

1:33 — 7 people with 4 problems atm, SirShokoladina in the lead

1:35 — Both Petr and tourist trying to solve A in time

1:37 — Winter is coming. Oh, I mean, end of the contest

We have out final results. Congratulations for Gennady Korotkevich for winning it all!

Hi!

It seems that even after changing libraries to correct version Cojac still do not fully work with Java 8 — namely it fails to work with lambdas. I got following exception:

java.lang.InternalError: compileToBytecode
	at java.lang.invoke.MethodHandleStatics.newInternalError(MethodHandleStatics.java:97)
	at java.lang.invoke.LambdaForm.compileToBytecode(LambdaForm.java:460)
	at java.lang.invoke.DirectMethodHandle.makePreparedLambdaForm(DirectMethodHandle.java:280)
	at java.lang.invoke.DirectMethodHandle.preparedLambdaForm(DirectMethodHandle.java:221)
	at java.lang.invoke.DirectMethodHandle.preparedLambdaForm(DirectMethodHandle.java:210)
	at java.lang.invoke.DirectMethodHandle.make(DirectMethodHandle.java:82)
	at java.lang.invoke.DirectMethodHandle.make(DirectMethodHandle.java:102)
	at java.lang.invoke.DirectMethodHandle.make(DirectMethodHandle.java:107)
	at java.lang.invoke.LambdaForm$NamedFunction.resolve(LambdaForm.java:1018)
	at java.lang.invoke.DirectMethodHandle$Lazy.<clinit>(DirectMethodHandle.java:711)
	at java.lang.invoke.DirectMethodHandle.makePreparedLambdaForm(DirectMethodHandle.java:265)
	at java.lang.invoke.DirectMethodHandle.preparedLambdaForm(DirectMethodHandle.java:221)
	at java.lang.invoke.DirectMethodHandle.preparedLambdaForm(DirectMethodHandle.java:210)
	at java.lang.invoke.DirectMethodHandle.make(DirectMethodHandle.java:82)
	at java.lang.invoke.DirectMethodHandle.make(DirectMethodHandle.java:102)
	at java.lang.invoke.DirectMethodHandle.make(DirectMethodHandle.java:107)
	at java.lang.invoke.LambdaForm$NamedFunction.initializeInvokers(LambdaForm.java:1050)
	at java.lang.invoke.LambdaForm.<clinit>(LambdaForm.java:1637)
	at java.lang.invoke.DirectMethodHandle.makePreparedLambdaForm(DirectMethodHandle.java:256)
	at java.lang.invoke.DirectMethodHandle.preparedLambdaForm(DirectMethodHandle.java:221)
	at java.lang.invoke.DirectMethodHandle.preparedLambdaForm(DirectMethodHandle.java:210)
	at java.lang.invoke.DirectMethodHandle.make(DirectMethodHandle.java:82)
	at java.lang.invoke.MethodHandles$Lookup.getDirectMethodCommon(MethodHandles.java:1638)
	at java.lang.invoke.MethodHandles$Lookup.getDirectMethodNoSecurityManager(MethodHandles.java:1602)
	at java.lang.invoke.MethodHandles$Lookup.getDirectMethodForConstant(MethodHandles.java:1778)
	at java.lang.invoke.MethodHandles$Lookup.linkMethodHandleConstant(MethodHandles.java:1727)
	at java.lang.invoke.MethodHandleNatives.linkMethodHandleConstant(MethodHandleNatives.java:442)
	at net.egork.TaskE.solve(TaskE.java:42)
	at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
	at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:62)
	at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43)
	at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:483)
	at net.egork.chelper.tester.NewTester.run(NewTester.java:169)
	at net.egork.chelper.tester.NewTester.test(NewTester.java:93)
	at net.egork.chelper.tester.NewTester.main(NewTester.java:23)
Caused by: java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: ch/eiafr/cojac/models/CheckedInts
	at jdk.internal.org.objectweb.asm.ClassWriter.<clinit>(ClassWriter.java:551)
	at java.lang.invoke.InvokerBytecodeGenerator.classFilePrologue(InvokerBytecodeGenerator.java:278)
	at java.lang.invoke.InvokerBytecodeGenerator.generateCustomizedCodeBytes(InvokerBytecodeGenerator.java:498)
	at java.lang.invoke.InvokerBytecodeGenerator.generateCustomizedCode(InvokerBytecodeGenerator.java:491)
	at java.lang.invoke.LambdaForm.compileToBytecode(LambdaForm.java:454)
	... 33 more

To fix this I created clone repository here and would want to welcome anyone who wants to help fix this

Just FYI

Schedule

UPD: Unique opportunity! For just 40 euro per night there is bed in twin room in Hilton West End in Budapest for May 2-5. Included breakfast, Internet and, most likely, executive lounge access. Also Petr would live in same hotel

Finalists:

15:24 — Closing ceremony will start shortly and you can watch it on ICPC Live. That's probably it for this translation. Bye-bye, see you soon

13:59 — Petr's blog for today

12:15 — That's it for Dress Rehearsal. Tune in tommorow. Bye-bye, see you soon

12:07 — Contest is over. Results should be availabe shortly

12:00 — Peking University

11:31 — I now accept requests for team photos ;)

11:28 — NRU ITMO:

11:25 — Taiwan National:

11:23 — SPb State:

11:16 — Scoreboard is frozen for the last hour, let's have some more photos :) Moscow State:

11:11 — Problems are same as last year, with slight change in wording

11:09 — Scoreboard is available online (tip of the hat to SuprDewd)

11:03 — Teams previewed in this blog are now placed like this:

2: Shanghai Jiao Tong, 10

3: Tokyo, 9

4: Moscow State, 8

7: SPb SU State, 8

14: Taiwan, 7

17: NRU ITMO, 7

11:00 — Shanghai Jiao Tong:

10:58 — Stanford first with 10, Shanghai Jiao Tong and Tokyo trail with 9

10:55 — Current leaders:

10:48 — Stanford leading with 10, Shanghai, Moscow and Tokyo with 8

10:40 — Stanford and Shanghai Jiao Tong lead with 8, Tokyo, Moscow and National University of Singapore with 7

10:36 — In the meantime NRU ITMO is 72nd with 2 problems solved

10:34 — All problems are now available in Kattis. Problem J is solved as well which leaves us with only one task not solved by anyone — Problem H. Stanford is leading with 8, Tokyo second with 7

10:30 — Only H and J are not solved as of yet. National Taiwan is close to solve J though — they only have problems with output format. And H is Power Tower again!

10:28 — B, F and E are now solved as well. Tokyo and Stanford are leading with 6

10:22 — First 8 problems are available on Kattis. In the meantime Stanford and Tokyo solved 5 problems, SungKyunKwan, Moscow State, Tehran and Southern California solved 4

10:18 — And now with 5

10:16 — Stanford University is now leading with 4

10:13 — C is solved as well. Shanghai Jiao Tong University is leading with 3. First two problems are available in Kattis

10:11 — Problem A is now available on Kattis for you to solve!

10:09 — A, D, J and K are all solved now as well. University of Chicago is in the lead with 2 solved tasks (and unsuccessful attempt on A)

10:08 — SungKyunKwan University is first team to solve Problem I

10:07 — Problem L is quite easy — given set of ints, you need to find maximum, minimum and their difference

10:05 — Six teams got problem L correct already

10:02 — Contest is started. No submissions yet

9:57 — One more delay, but this is business as usual. Currently contest in the state of "Two minute hold"

9:52 — Teams are currently being instructed. 5 minutes before the start

9:47 — Tune in tommorow for ICPC Live

9:23 — It seems Dress Rehearsal would be a little bit delayed and will start in 34 minutes. Currently teams are exiting arena and will reenter it shortly

9:13 — Remember, this year you can submit problems yourself from both Dress Rehearsal and main contest — just go to Kattis judjing system

9:10 — Teams are currently called to stage in turn by Bill Poucher and got photoed with World Finals Cup and Bill himself

8:51 — Hi! Dress Rehearsal will start in 39 minutes, stay tuned

Hello from St. Petersbutg where long awaited World Finals were officially opened at last.

Before the openning there was lunch near Anichkov palace, courtesy of Yandex, from which I have very cute shot of 2004 World Champion, Pavel Mavrin a. k. a. pashka

The openning itself took place in Alexandrinsky Theatre, one of the oldest in Russia. It was for the most part quick-paced, with a lot of music and art, including a part of ballet and sand drawing.

And now the main part — for the first time ever everyone in the world can have their chance to solve World Finals problems and submit them for testing. Starting 15 minutes after scheduled contest start, at 6:45 GMT on July 2nd (Dress Rehearsal) and 3rd you can submit your solutions to Kattis judjing system, the very same system used by World Finalists themselves. Also do not forget to tune in to ICPC Live and this blog, where I will provide live coverage as well.

Bye-bye, see you soon!

So, what is the last team I want to preview. Do you have any guesses? So many variants... Well, you must have guessed it right — it is SPb NRU ITMO 1.

Let’s start with small facts about each of team members:

• Mikhail won several trips to the next TCO through various side competitions (like photo competition) during TCO 2011

• Niyaz tweeted in April: “Playing dice with Gennady. This is the only game in which he can possibly lose”

Well, I cheated — one fact for two teammates :)

So, 2 of its participants are world champions already. And the third one will probably be. Why everyone thinks they will be champions again. Only once this team was behind another World Finals team in 2013. They won 13th OpenCup with overwhelming advantage (150 points ahead of second place, just 20 points shy of perfect score), although team finished third in previous edition. 7 wins and 4 second places on stages, OpenCup onsite win, NEERC championship — and that’s all in just 10 months. Well, during last OpenCup they ousted a team that featured 2 TCO, 2 GCJ, 2 Hacker Cup and 3 World Finals wins total. So, does anyone else have a fighting chance?

Well, yes. They are humans after all (despite some rumors). And World Finals are known for tricky problem sets. Well, in 5 days we’ll see.

Line up:

Mikhail Kever — Codeforces rating 2530, TopCoder rating 2969, 2012 World Champion, TopCoder Open 2011 finalist, Google Code Jam 2013 finalist, Facebook Hacker Cup 2012 and 2013 finalist

Niyaz Nigmatullin — Codeforces rating 2523, TopCoder rating 2818, 2012 World Champion

Gennady Korotkevich — Codeforces rating 3088, TopCoder rating 3657, TopCoder Open 2013 semifinalist, Google Code Jam 2013 finalist, Facebook Hacker Cup 2013 finalist, 6 time Gold (2007-2012, 1st place in 2009-2011) and Silver (2006) medalist in IOI.

Gold chances? Well, 95%. There is always 5% chance for something really odd to happen

Only two previews remaining, and today’s team is National Taiwan University +1 ironwood branch. This team already participated in World Finals in 2011 and had not won medal with 6 problems solved, but they make good use of this 2 years with outstanding progress in both personal and team competitions.

In 2010 team finished 3rd in Kaohsiung and 1st in Jakarta Regional Contests. In 2011 they placed 1st in Kuala Lumpur and 2nd in Hsinchu Regional Contests, but another team from the same university was selected. In 2012 they won both Kaohsiung and Jakarta Regional Contests. After Jakarta regional they were interviewed, you can view it here.

Line-up:

Pi-Hsun Shih — Codeforces rating 2823, TopCoder rating 3158, TopCoder Open 2013 Semifinalist, Gold medalist in 2009 IOI.

Che-Yang Wu — Codeforces rating 2229, TopCoder rating 2154, Gold (2008) and Silver (2009) medalist in IOI.

Han-Jay Yang — Codeforces rating 2463, TopCoder rating 2790, TopCoder Open 2013 Semifinalist, VK Cup 2012 Finalist, Gold (2008) and Silver (2007) medalist in IOI.

Pretty impressive results in regionals (they had beaten University of Tokyo team in Jakarta) and recent personal result (peter50216 is second in Codeforces rating, kelvin and peter50216 qualified to upcoming TCO onsite) make them quite dangerous. I will give them 60% chance for Gold.

I found this near my subway station

Next team is Tokyo University team called “University of Agitsune”. Its name has an interesting history. The team members name themselves like 3 animals — rabbit (usagi in Japanese), eel (unagi) and fox (kitsune). If you combine a rabbit and a fox, you will get usagitsune. If you combine an eel and a fox, you will get unagitsune. Replacing by dash letters that differ, we can obtain u-agitsune. And as University of Tokyo is sometimes referred to as U-Tokyo, reversing the rule, we get the team name (credit for this explanation should go to qnighy).

Last year 2 of its members participated in OpenCup under name “Kroliki” (transliteration of Russian word for rabbits). This is not a coincidence, as Makoto Soejima learns Russian. They finished 7th in general classification with one second and one third places on stages.

This team finished first in Tokyo Regional Contest, one problem ahead of second place, and third in Kaohsiung Regional Contest. They also finished first in Japan Domestic Contest.

Line-up:

Kazuhiro Hosaka — Codeforces rating 2400, TopCoder rating 3101, TopCoder Open 2011 finalist, Google Code Jam 2009, 2012 and 2013 finalist, Facebook Hacker Cup 2011-2013 finalist, Gold medalist in 2008 and 2009 IOI, Gold (2009) and Silver (2008) medalist in IMO.

Kensuke Imanishi — Codeforces rating 2436, TopCoder rating 2614, Google Code Jam 2013 finalist, Silver medalist in 2010 and 2011 IOI.

Makoto Soejima — Codeforces rating 2814, TopCoder rating 3468 (currently TopCoder algorithms admin), TopCoder Open 2010 and 2011 champion, Google Code Jam 2011 champion and 2010 and 2012 finalist, Facebook Hacker Cup 2011 and 2013 finalist, VK Cup 2012 finalist, Silver medalist in 2008 and 2009 IOI, 3 times Gold (2007-2009) and Bronze (2005) medalist in IMO.

Their personal achievements make this team one of favorites without any doubt. My guess is they have about 70% chance to get gold.

SPbSU 4 team is up for preview today. This is team’s second season in this line up, although it was not eligible for ACM ICPC last season as Egor Suvorov was still a high school student.

This team is the only team participating in World Finals that finished ahead of NRU ITMO in this year team competition — they won OpenCup GP of Ukraine. They finished 3rd overall in 13th season, while previous 2 seasons they finished 9th and 2nd (3 points ahead of NRU ITMO). During this seasons they won 3 stages and finished second and third once. In last NEERC they finished 4th (with 4 tasks passed during last hour) despite the fact that they were second one minute before end.

Personal achievements are splendid as well:

Egor Suvorov — Codeforces raintg 2607, TopCoder rating 2895, Facebook Hacker Cup 2013 finalist, VK Cup 2012 finalist, Silver (2011) and Gold (2012) medalist in IOI

Pavel Kunyavskiy — Codeforces rating 2564, TopCoder rating 3019, Google Code Jam 2013 finalist, Gold medal (3rd overall place) in IOI 2011

Dmitry Egorov — Codeforces rating 2397, TopCoder rating 2773, TopCoder Open 2012 Wild Card Round participant, Silver medal in both IOI and IMO 2011

Overall I think this is one of a few teams that have chance to win World Finals. At the same time I think consistency is not one of their strengths, hence I think they have 50% chance to win gold.

Second to go is Shanghai Jiao Tong University Mithril team. I have a little trivia to share about this team actually. SJTU won World Finals three times — in 2002, 2005 and 2010. One student usually can participate in no more than 2 finals, but from what I heard (correct me if I’m wrong) in China there is a custom rule that student can’t participate in more than one World Finals. Hence Bin Jin started as substitute in his team.

SJTU won Jinhua (2 problems ahead of second place) and Dhaka Regional Contests. They were highest placed (3rd) Chinese team in the Battle of Giants (team match between Russia and China)

Line-up:

Xiaoxu Guo — Codeforces rating 2264, TopCoder rating 2485

Bin Jin — Codeforces rating 2428, TopCoder rating 2743, TopCoder Open 2009 winner, Google Code Jam 2011 finalist, World Finals 2010 Champion as part of SJTU Rhodea team

Jingbo Shang — Codeforces rating 2309, TopCoder rating 2813, VK Cup 2012 finalist, TopCoder Open 2012 finalist

This team has very good results, but what is more important — experience of winning big things. I think they have at least 60% chance to win gold.

Let’s start with previewing some teams that will participate in World Finals. I will write about 6 teams that I believe are favorites to win gold medals, but anything can happen. Feel free to post your top 6 (top 3, top 12, top n) in comments.

Photo by Yan Tsench

First to go is Moscow State University team ST. It's name has become a brand that has a very long history. My own team, Moscow SU x13, competed against a team with the same name. It usually consist of Moscow SU students that are originally from Saratov.

This is the second time this lineup participate in World Finals. Last year they were 10th and won bronze medals. With last minute (more like last 5 seconds) submission they got 2nd place in last NEERC, which is repeat of 2011 performance. They won last Moscow subregionals.

In last 6 seasons of OpenCup they placed 7th, 8th, 5th, 6th, 4th and 4th in general classification, 2 second places as well as 6 third places on separate stages as well as third place in finals of 11th OpenCup.

Personal achievements are also very solid:

Sergey Fedorov — Codeforces rating 2406, TopCoder rating 2802, TopCoder Open 2012 wildcard round participant, 2 (2009 and 2010) gold medals in IOI

Aleksandr Kaluzhin — Codeforces rating 2206, TopCoder rating 2294, 2 (2007 and 2008) silver medals in IOI

Sergey Rogulenko — Codeforces rating 2601, TopCoder rating 2926, TopCoder Open 2011 semifinalist, Google Code Jam 2010 finalist, gold (2008) and silver (2009) medals in IOI.

Very solid team and individual achievements would put this team in list of favorites in any programming competition. I’m absolutely sure they would win medal and their chances for gold are at least 50%. What do you think about Moscow SU ST?