kalimm's blog

By kalimm, history, 8 years ago, In English

Hi Codeforces,

Me(kalimm), muratakburak and OnurYildiz have a competitive programming team which name is LogicError in TOBB ETU.

Like a month ago, we participated at SEERC 2016. When there's just a minute before the contest finished, I completed writing problem A and submitted it. It gave a wrong answer because in one line I wrote "a[i]" instead of "b[i]". I changed it immediately but I wasn't be able to submit it because contest had finished. I downloaded code to my flash drive, hoping that somebody add this problem to Gym in Codeforces.

Thanks to Temirulan, he added SEERC 2016 to Gym, I submitted my code on Codeforces, and it passed. I got very sad because we got 6th place and lost 2th place because of one tiny bug, and chance of going ACM-ICPC Finals same time.

Two days ago I got an e-mail from "ICPC Manager", which named "IMPORTANT: Please certify your team." I didn't read it carefully and I thought it was just a "certificate" about 6th place. I was just about to delete it then I thought maybe I can use that certificate some time. I clicked to e-mail but there were no links, pictures, pdfs in there. I read the first sentence and got a little heart attack,

"CONGRATULATIONS! Your team, LogicError, has advanced to the 41st Annual ACM-ICPC World Finals sponsored by IBM and hosted by Excellence in Computer Programming, Inc. from May 20–25, 2017 in Rapid City, South Dakota, USA."

I stared at my phone like WTF IS GOING ON for five minutes. Then I realised we're going to ACM-ICPC Finals.

We will be the first Turkish team which is going to finals, so we're really happy about it. It's a great success for us. However here's the main part I want to learn. Why we are going to finals? As far as I know, top 3 teams are qualified for finals. It made a big surprise for us and made us really happy.

Thanks to whoever thinks "Let's top 6 team go to finals this year"!

  • Vote: I like it
  • +244
  • Vote: I do not like it

»
8 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +19 Vote: I do not like it

Did you attend the closing ceremony of SEERC 2016? Teams which qualify to World Finals are supposed to be announced there, perhaps they announced more than 3 teams!

  • »
    »
    8 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it +5 Vote: I do not like it

    I was a bit late but muratakburak did. If they mentioned it we would have known that, I think :P

    • »
      »
      »
      8 years ago, # ^ |
        Vote: I like it +19 Vote: I do not like it

      Then maybe you should email "ICPC Manager" explaining to them this situation and ask them to confirm that your team did qualify to WF.

      • »
        »
        »
        »
        8 years ago, # ^ |
          Vote: I like it +16 Vote: I do not like it

        On the ICPC WF teams page (here), the top 6 teams all seem to be invited. =)

      • »
        »
        »
        »
        8 years ago, # ^ |
          Vote: I like it +3 Vote: I do not like it

        Of course I became sure about it before posting this :)

  • »
    »
    8 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it +15 Vote: I do not like it

    Not all slots are pre-determined. For example, there's only one guaranteed spot in SWERC. The second place team usually goes as well, but this is only determined afterwards.

    I believe that results in different regionals are analysed and they give additional invitations accordingly (meaning that if our 2nd team is much weaker that 1st, they might invite another team in a different region).

    • »
      »
      »
      8 years ago, # ^ |
        Vote: I like it +15 Vote: I do not like it

      Yes, and your statement is very true for all regions. Every region is only guaranteed one spot at World Finals. The other slots are dependent on several factors: the number of teams that competed, the talent of the teams that competed, etc.

    • »
      »
      »
      8 years ago, # ^ |
        Vote: I like it +10 Vote: I do not like it

      Oh I didn't know that before, because in our region (ACPC) all finalists are usually announced in the closing ceremony, this year they announced 9 teams which is really big number to be pre-determined for a very weak region like ACPC.

      • »
        »
        »
        »
        8 years ago, # ^ |
          Vote: I like it +10 Vote: I do not like it

        Maybe ACPC has a big number of teams participating? That's a factor as well in the number of slots given.

        SWERC is the weakest European regional, but I think we only get 2 spots because there are not many teams participating.

»
8 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +30 Vote: I do not like it

Oh. And importantly: Congratulations on advancing. =)

»
8 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it -10 Vote: I do not like it

maybe... troll level: master

»
8 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +17 Vote: I do not like it

Congratulations. You guys probably worked very hard for this. :)

  • »
    »
    8 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it +6 Vote: I do not like it

    In a way yes, but actually we didn't even work for "it". After high school none of us practised. It was the first contest we participate together, actually it was the first "problem solving" we did together :)

    • »
      »
      »
      8 years ago, # ^ |
        Vote: I like it 0 Vote: I do not like it

      Congratulations!

      How does ICPC selection work in Turkey? From your words about SEERC being first contest your team participated in it sounds like there are no preliminaries/quarterfinals. Or you simply mean that there were some substitutions in a team between preliminary round and SEERC?

      • »
        »
        »
        »
        8 years ago, # ^ |
          Vote: I like it 0 Vote: I do not like it

        Thank you so much :)

        We directly participated at SEERC. I know that anyone can participate in it, but I think this is wrong. How does ICPC selection work in other countries, is there any limit for countries?

        • »
          »
          »
          »
          »
          8 years ago, # ^ |
          Rev. 2   Vote: I like it +20 Vote: I do not like it

          How does ICPC selection work in other countries

          tl;dr clusterfuck supreme

          Regions and regionals make their own rules, apparently. In the Asian part, one team can participate in many regionals, then magic (read: a process that's probably quite corrupt) happens and some teams are selected.

        • »
          »
          »
          »
          »
          8 years ago, # ^ |
          Rev. 2   Vote: I like it 0 Vote: I do not like it

          In SWERC, three teams per institution can compete.

          For each institution, teams 1 and 2 can compete in any case. If there are too many registered teams, then team 3 may not be able to participate (this is decided on when you registered : first arrive, first serve).

          So, each institution has to decide who it sends to the regional contest, on its own.

»
8 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +16 Vote: I do not like it

Congratulations! Great accomplishment!

I always thought first team to attend finals from Turkey would be from METU :P

»
8 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +19 Vote: I do not like it

All those magic constants from nowhere are kinda weird. Four years ago on CERC it was told that there are 3 slots to WF, but some time after CERC team from University of Wroclaw was informed that there is actually one more spot and they are going to finals. However few months later organizers changed their mind and told them they are not going :|... After series of complaints and appeals in the end they were granted spot in WF, so everything ended up happily, however that was surely a rollercoaster of emotions.

  • »
    »
    8 years ago, # ^ |
    Rev. 4   Vote: I like it +20 Vote: I do not like it

    You may be confusing bits of two or three separate occasions here :)

    2011/12: Because the next ICPC was to be in Warsaw, the Polish Collegiate Contest (AMPPZ) was granted one slot, which would be awarded to the best university from AMPPZ which does not qualify from CERC. We got a good (4th) position at AMPPZ, losing only to University of Warsaw teams, so only two things could make us not go to World Finals: University of Warsaw not qualifying from CERC (highly unlikely, especially seeing that top3 on AMPPZ was all Warsaw) or a different team from our university beating us on CERC. At CERC, we performed really poorly and did get beaten by another team from our university, but their position was also not enough to qualify — there were 3 slots and they were the 4th-best university. So we were happy about going to the WF. However, then an an extra (4th) slot for CERC was announced. There was some interpretation-of-the-rules thing at that point, but in the end the other team from Wrocław got awarded the WF spot, and our spot from AMPPZ was awarded to the next university (Technical University of Poznań). Not nice, but reasonable.

    2012/13: We got one place behind the four WF slots (even though we felt we performed very well, many CERC teams seem to have done an excellent job that day). We heard unofficially that they were considering adding one more slot. Then, after about one month, we did indeed get the invitation :)

    2013/14: Again we got the fifth university-place on CERC. But at the closing ceremony it was announced that there will be five slots. Great :) Then, over the next month, we did not get the invitation, became gradually more worried, then learned unofficially that CERC would get four slots in the end (even though in the previous year it was 4+1, and the region was doing crazy well on WF). Two months after the regional, we appealed in an effective way and pretty soon the ICPC made it right (but in the meantime other people involved also tried to appeal on our behalf and were unsuccessful).

    So my impression is that there is not much ill will, but the process should be made fully transparent. The ICPC does use some criteria that they talk about (medals from the region at the previous World Finals, for instance, and some perceived level of the regionals) and a lot of criteria about which they do not. And the Asian regionals frankly sound like a horror story to me, and possibly highly corrupt. I would say that every year, before the first regional begins, some formal description of the rules should be made available to everyone (maybe even an algorithm) which, given the results of all regionals, will determine the World Finals advancers without any further human input.

    This does not sound like a pipe dream to me, because the ICPC is in fact becoming more and more open and modern (in 2011 or 2012 they have started to release tests, for example, and did you know that they are now releasing this stuff as well, or this?). Maybe in 2-3 years...

    • »
      »
      »
      8 years ago, # ^ |
      Rev. 2   Vote: I like it +4 Vote: I do not like it

      you are more than welcome in my university :P

      Arab region got 9 slots this year :V

      You won't get a better deal :D

»
8 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +78 Vote: I do not like it

Congratulations!
4 month ago you prevented from participating in IOI 2016 because of some shitty political reasons where you probably would get a gold medal
now I think life is a little bit fair
I'm really happy for you