evenvalue's blog

Invitation to GoForGold Long Challenge — Jan 2025
By evenvalue, 6 weeks ago, In English

Hello, Codeforces Community!

We are excited to introduce the GoForGold Long Challenges.

The long challenge format is where contestants are given a long period of time, usually a week or several days, to work on a set of problems. Some notable examples include CodeChef Long Challenges (discontinued) and HackerEarth Circuits (discontinued).

We will host GoForGold Long Challenges every month .

The duration will be ~10 days (from Friday afternoon to next Sunday midnight).

Why Long Challenges?

Short contests are fun, and almost all the recognized competitions are in this format only. The adrenaline rush they provide is what makes CP a sport, but there are some really good benefits of Long challenges :

  • Longer duration allows us to give contests in a much more relaxed environment.
  • We can attempt much harder problems as compared as we have more time to crack it.
  • There is a bigger room for learning a new algorithm, data structure, or some non-trivial trick or technique in a long contest.
  • As many participants are trying the same problems for 7-10 days, thus you have a larger community to discuss the problem.
  • The community is much more active because of the longer duration of the contest.
  • Many people miss the contests because of odd timing, clashes with their exams, etc in short contests but here everyone can participate as per their own convenience.
  • In a typical short contest, participants solve the problems which are easy for them in the first half and then solve the problems which really matter to them in the second half. In a long challenge you solve those easier problems on the first day and then spend the rest of the days on the problems which will challenge you.

This is a community driven initiative and all the problems are prepared/picked by the community. This is the first iteration and the problems will be a mix of old and new problems of varying difficulty level (800-2700). The nature of the problem will be educational and not ad-hoc.

We will also release topics and hints on day-7 so that participants will have 3 more days in which they can learn the concept and try the problem again. We will host the post contest discussion of the contest along with some learning sessions on the topics involved.

Update

Problems discussion with jenil0108 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ygil6-ttQ_4

  • You can join our discord server for any questions or volunteering for future contests: Discord Invite

  • From the next iteration as we will get more volunteers and sponsors, we will try to have all new problems. If you want to contribute : Please fill this form.

Contest Detail :

Please join the codeforces group : https://codeforces.net/group/OseQ3LxgeG and register for the contest.

  • Start time : 17th Jan 2025, 03:00 PM (IST)
  • End time : 27th Jan 2025, 12:00 AM (IST)

Contributors

UPDATE : The contest has started

UPDATE 2 : Hints/topics/resources are published

King's Pass
Dirtmouth
Forgotten Crossroads
Greenpath
Fog Canyon
Fungal Wastes
City of Tears
Crystal Peak (Hard Version)
Resting Grounds
Royal Waterways
Kingdom's Edge
Deepnest
Difficulty Order as per setters
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6 weeks ago, # |
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very fantastic!

Have you considered making future Long Challenges topic-based, similar to the DP contest on atcoder?

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6 weeks ago, # |
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Thank you so much for this, excited to participate !!!

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6 weeks ago, # |
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Where will you post the post-contest discussions?

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    6 weeks ago, # ^ |
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    We will have a discussion on the discord and will try to a have YouTube stream too

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6 weeks ago, # |
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evenvalue — the king of even numbers orz

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5 weeks ago, # |
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Hey guys! The contest is tomorrow and I just wanted to mention a few things.

Most of problems aren't original. We will try to have more and more original problems from February onwards, although it really depends on how many people are volunteering to help. We just had like 2-3 people who were giving problem recommendations this time. We also only had like 10ish days to prepare the contest, so coming up with new original + hard + educational problems was difficult.

This also means that some of problems could be found by simply googling. Obviously, please don't do that. This contest is purely meant to be educational and you're not even gaining internet points if you cheat. So we request people not to actively try finding the original problem. If you do come across the original problem, just don't read the editorial.

Again, this contest is purely meant for you. We just want to introduce you to newer kinds of problems and techniques, how you benefit from the contest is upto you.

We will also have a detailed Post-Conest-Discussion of the problems where we will discuss the concept and techniques involved in the problems and you will only get the maximum out of the PCD if you put your honest effort. Remember long challenges are different, the level of problems may be higher so don't give up after giving 1-2 hours on a problem. In short contests it's highly unlikely to solve problems of more than +200 rating from your current level, but here you can try to brick on much harder problems.

Since this our first time as well, there could be some mistakes so we'd love to hear your feedback after the contest! I hope you guys enjoy the contest as much as we enjoyed preparing it.

Good luck!

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    5 weeks ago, # ^ |
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    i hope you set some great problems in there

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5 weeks ago, # |
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Thank you very very very very very muuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuch.................

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4 weeks ago, # |
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When will the topics and hints be released?

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    4 weeks ago, # ^ |
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    Obviously after the end of the contest

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      4 weeks ago, # ^ |
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      But the following is mentioned in the announcement :

      We will also release topics and hints on day-7 so that participants will have 3 more days in which they can learn the concept and try the problem again. We will host the post contest discussion of the contest along with some learning sessions on the topics involved.

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        4 weeks ago, # ^ |
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        BY Tomorrow, we will release topics and hints (maybe resources to learn those topics).

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        4 weeks ago, # ^ |
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        Oops sorry didn't read that part

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    4 weeks ago, # ^ |
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    Hints and Topics are updated in the blog.

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      4 weeks ago, # ^ |
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      Hey can you even please provide the difficulty level of problems according to codeforces. It will be really helpful...

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4 weeks ago, # |
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Difficulty order as per Dominater069 :

A < L < [K / F] < [J / G] < [C / E] < [B / I / H1] < [H2 / D]

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4 weeks ago, # |
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My submissions are stuck in queue while those who submitted after me had theirs judged. Is this a Codeforces bug?

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4 weeks ago, # |
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editorial?

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