Hi everybody!

The VK Cup 2012 programming championship finals is going to take place very soon. The organizing committee and jury are working around the clock to set up the event that the participants will like.

Let us remind you that the finals will take place from July, 13 to July, 16. We will choose the best 50 participants by the results of VK Cup 2012 Round 3. As soon as we are absolutely sure about who can come to the finals, we will publish the list of the finalists.

We’d like to share some information from the organizing committee headquarters. The finals’ participants will be accommodated in the beautiful Kempinski hotel in the centre of St. Petersburg, on the bank of the Moika. The hotel is located within a walking distance from the Vkontakte office, so there won’t be any exhausting buses and coming across the city’s traffic jams! Please note the roof restaurant with the view on the Palace Square when you take a look at the photos of the hotel.

There is no exact timetable yet, something depends on the time when the participants will arrive and the complexity of the problems (that’s right, the final round may not have the usual timing). The general plan is as follows:

• July, 13: Checking in, having dinner, meeting each other and having fun.
• July, 14: Most of the day will be dedicated to an unofficial entertaining event called Code Game Challenge (special for VK Cup 2012). Also a short testing tour is planned on that day. In the evening the great dinner will be topped with Code Game Challenge Show – watching the strategy tournament on a large screen.
• July, 15: The main day of the competitions (good luck!). In the evening we’ll reward the winners and celebrate all finalists (I am sure that everyone will be pleased :));
• July, 16: Going home.

Vkontakte and Codeforces are very glad to see the students’ interest in VK Cup 2012. Despite us inviting only young coders to the championship (the age limit should not exceed 23 years), nearly 6000 participants registered there. They geographically cover practically all countries of the world! We are very glad to see that almost all coders who advanced to the finals could make it to St. Petersburg. The winners will get worthy awards, and at this point we are happy to announce that the championship prize fund has been increased! You’ve got an aim to fight for and do your best to win!

• 1st place — $20000
• 2nd place — $10000
• 3rd place — $5000
• 4-5th place — $2000;
• 6-10th place — $1000.

Easy journey to the finalists,
The VK Cup 2012 jury and organizing committee.

Questions and Answers

• What will be the rules of the Final Round? The round will be held by the rules of Codeforces, it will be 2 or 2.5 hours long. The dynamic problems' scoring is likely to be used.
• Will we use the PCs that you will give us, or our own PCs? The participants will use special workstations prepared by the VK Cup Team. It is not allowed to use one's own laptops. You may bring a USB-keyboard, but it should not have superior features.
• What operation system will be used? We hope to give the oppotunity to boot Ubuntu 12.04 or Windows at the participant's choice. We are working on it now. We will install a wide list of free software on both OS.
• Is it possible to use a prewritten code? Basically no, it is only allowed to use the code written on the competition. But you may use the code written on the practice session or on the CodeGame coding phase.

Saint-Petersburg photos

Finalists