Guendabiaani's blog

Plan to go from expert to master in 3 months
By Guendabiaani, history, 4 years ago, In English

A couple days ago a most dearest friend told me to participate in his cf round, this instantly reminded me about my embarrassing blog history where I made a plan to get to candidate master and bailed quickly after.

To right this wrong, I come before you today with a more ambitious plan, which is making master in 3 months.

If you have read up to this point, that means you are at least mildly interested in this grandiose journey, and so you probably have a few questions. Fear not, I have prepared a list of FAQ for your convenience.

FAQ

  • Why?

Solving problems is pretty fun, however, having your name stained with a boring blue is not. This journey is aesthetically motivated.

  • How?

Last time my plan was not very simple and choosing the problems was time consuming, I think that contributed to its failure. Furthermore, I don't think master is an unreasonable goal (as in, I believe anyone can get it given enough practice). Therefore, in the interest of success I will just be solving problems rated >= 1900 in CF by order of solves.

  • When?

I actually started today, the first such problem is called 'Dijkstra?'. I don't know if I already knew this, the problem itself (finding a shortest path in a graph with positive weights) is not very difficult, but I realized I don't know much theory so I'll also be reading the handbook for learning theory or good implementations of things.

  • How? (Revisited)

Solve problems rated >= 1900 in CF by order of solves, as well as the Handbook ( https://cses.fi/problemset/ ) to learn about more classical problems.

  • Frequency?

I'm sure about very few things in life, but I know for sure that writing blogs is boring and time consuming, and that I like attention. Striving for a balance between this two things, I will post updates approximately every month, this will allow me to use most of the time solving problems, and it also has the added bonus of letting me quietly disappear if things go sideways.

Having said all that, I salute everyone single one of you that read up to this point and is also pursuing more visually pleasing colors. I will see you in a month.

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Comments Comments (27)
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4 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +12 Vote: I do not like it

Good luck!

But as someone who tried (and failed), I'm warning you. This is gonna be painful, as it will take a lot of time and effort.

I said that cuz I had started a similar project called "From Blue to Red" 14 months ago, yet I gave up after having suffered for 3 months.

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    4 years ago, # ^ |
    ← Rev. 2   Vote: I like it 0 Vote: I do not like it

    Hey can u tell me how I can become expert in next 3 months from your experience? Like problems of what difficulty range I should solve?(Currently I've solved 70+ 1600 rated problems and 40+ 1700 rated problems). Thanks:)

    Any other blue/cm want to give some advice you're welcm, pls don't be shy.

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      4 years ago, # ^ |
        Vote: I like it +6 Vote: I do not like it

      Your rating graph is good. Keep solving above your comfort level and learn new stuffs when you need them in a problem. You will reach blue soon.
      Best of Luck !

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4 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +5 Vote: I do not like it

Mast Plan Hai

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4 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +22 Vote: I do not like it

You can at most aim for 1900+. 2100 is way far from you. Let's say, you're practicing hard. But, you have to adjust with that and perform good in rounds constantly. How many rounds would you get in 3 months? And you won't do good in every round you know.
You have to be real lucky to reach your goal, also real hardwork.

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4 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +118 Vote: I do not like it

Best of luck my dude. I know you well enough to know you can actually do this if you're motivated enough, so just remember to have fun and stay hydrated and reply to my messages once in a while.

I'll be watching you closely, mr. dearest friend ;)

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    4 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it +67 Vote: I do not like it

    Everyone needs a friend like this in their life

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4 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +9 Vote: I do not like it

What should be the plan for going from newbie to high level expert in 3 months?

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4 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +1 Vote: I do not like it

All the best dude! You can do it!

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4 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +9 Vote: I do not like it

don't choke!

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4 years ago, # |
← Rev. 2   Vote: I like it +30 Vote: I do not like it

From someone that has done this before, I can say that it is very doable. One suggestion that I think I should give is that you should write all contests that don't interrupt your schedule. If you're a high rated purple at some point, I think that you should still write the Division 1 or global rounds for practice if they appear rather than waiting for a Division 2 round. Best of luck to you!!!

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    4 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it +2 Vote: I do not like it

    It should be the opposite in my opinion: purples should write as many Div1s as they can, not Div2s. Div2s don't contribute as much to growth.

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      4 years ago, # ^ |
        Vote: I like it +5 Vote: I do not like it

      Did you misread?

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        4 years ago, # ^ |
          Vote: I like it +14 Vote: I do not like it

        I did not; the poster said "should still write the Division 1 or global rounds for practice" and "rather than waiting for a Division 2 round", which makes it seem like the normal strategy should be to give Division 2 rounds (and you should give Division 1 only if Division 2 rounds are unavailable). I would say that if you have limited time, you should skip Division 2 only rounds and give exclusively Division 1 and combined rounds, apart from doing practice on your weak topics.

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          4 years ago, # ^ |
            Vote: I like it -32 Vote: I do not like it

          Hmm, do you mean that participating in weaker division contests is bad for our rating score and it's better to skip them?

          Somehow I got an impression that the access to Division 2 / Division 3 contests is supposed to be restricted for stronger players to prevent easy ranking score "farming". Did I understand it wrong?

          And your current account history also shows that you somehow happened to get the biggest ranking score increases from your recent Division 2 contests, while Division 1 contests were much less impressive.

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            4 years ago, # ^ |
            ← Rev. 2   Vote: I like it +17 Vote: I do not like it

            My definition of growth is growth in your ability to solve problems, not rating growth. I gained +200 from some div2s, but I only did them for the rating (I learnt much more from div1s where I got -100). Also, I can't match my div2 gains — gaining +200 in a div1 is impossible for me unless I randomly manage to get top 20 or something... (

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              4 years ago, # ^ |
                Vote: I like it -11 Vote: I do not like it

              Regardless of your definition, the suggestion to skip Division 2 contests is likely to effectively sabotage the ranking score of the blog post author. And I'm not sure if this is going to help in "pursuing more visually pleasing colors" goal, especially considering the declared 3 months deadline.

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      4 years ago, # ^ |
        Vote: I like it -27 Vote: I do not like it

      Well, if you have to choose, Div1's are probably better than Div2's, but why not just do both? If it's a Div1 & 2 round, you can register for both, and attempt all the problems, correct?

      And Div2's are probably good practice for Div1's, because usually Div2 C-F is Div1 A-D, and most people don't get to solving Div1 E & F anyway.

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4 years ago, # |
← Rev. 3   Vote: I like it +12 Vote: I do not like it

From someone who has tried this and failed in his main account, I could easily solve 1900+ rating questions in the time of practice(maybe seeing the tags) , but I couldn't do them(mostly) in the time of contests.That's why I gave up(Blue, currently).

But after seeing this blog, I am gonna try it again. Any tips (except practice & staying hydrtated, lol) from Newbies to LGM's will be appriciated.

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    4 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it -11 Vote: I do not like it

    Well to LGM is hard for anyone except a select few to answer, but to get to master I think the way is to learn the algorithms necessary, like Dijkstra's, DSU, DP (at least the basics), and then practice problems to be able to actually solve the problems in-contest.

    And yes, being able to look at the tags when solving a problem makes it a lot easier. And to a certain extent, even just looking at the rating lets you know how about complicated the solution should be. So probably virtual contests are the best for you to get better, because you're able to solve the problems, just not in-contest.

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      4 years ago, # ^ |
        Vote: I like it -23 Vote: I do not like it

      Did you misread?

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        4 years ago, # ^ |
          Vote: I like it -19 Vote: I do not like it

        Did YOU misread?

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          4 years ago, # ^ |
          ← Rev. 3   Vote: I like it +3 Vote: I do not like it

          Well to LGM is hard for anyone except a select few to answer

          He clearly meant tips from anybody ranging from a newbie to an LGM, not tips on getting from newbie to LGM

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    4 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it 0 Vote: I do not like it

    Are you doing your practice as virtual contests or focus on solving individual problems? Virtual contests simulate the same time limits as the original ranked contests. If you can successfully solve problems during virtual contests but run out of time during actual ranked contests, then maybe performing under pressure is something that may need improvements?

    I see that you are not posting your comment from your main account. Why is that? I already noticed that some people are using temporary throw-away accounts when they are reporting cheaters, but that's probably because they are scared of retaliation via kneejerk downvotes or something like this.

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4 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it -17 Vote: I do not like it

Not to be mean or anything but I wanna say that I believe that blogs like: "Plan to become X in Y time" only pollute the recent actions section, and are generally shitposts, simply made to gain contribution. It's none of anyone's concerns besides the author and I think that the world would've been a better place without blogs like this one.

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