Hello, Codeforces! ฅ(*`ω´*)ฅ

We are glad to invite you to take part in Codeforces Round 789 (Div. 1) and Codeforces Round 789 (Div. 2), which will be held on May/08/2022 17:35 (Moscow time).

The round will be rated for all participants from both divisions. Participants in each division will be offered 6 problems and 2 hours to solve them. Both divisions will share 4 problems.

The problems were written and prepared by funer, dark_light, FreshP_0325, Frank_DD, qsmcgogo, winterzz1, Sugar_fan, TomiokapEace and me.

Thank to:

• RedMachine-74 for excellent coordination of this round! And translating the statements to Russian.

• KAN for helping us to review and fix some statements.

• TomiokapEace for helping us to translate all the statements and tutorials to English.

• Sugar_fan for giving valuable advice and helping us to fix some statements.

• Elder_Giang, ddytxdy, zwezdinv, zarubin, olyazyryanova, marzipan, MichsSS, playf, TeaTime, gojira, plagues, AlexLuchianov, kpw29, Huah, Yzm007, Duck_sajin, Operation27, Venn, Nephry, Sugar_fan, errorgorn, Um_nik, TadijaSebez, Prokhor74, Grigoreva-Irina, Dragonado, lunaTu and jqdai0815 for testing this round and giving good advice.

• MikeMirzayanov and his Codeforces team for amazing systems Codeforces and Polygon!

• NEAR for supporting this round, details can be found in this post.

Here are some things I personally want to say. This is my second round. Three years have passed since the first round round 573 I held. Now I have graduated and worked. I like codeforces very much. Though I have already participated in work, haven't trained for a long time, my ability has degraded a lot, I will still come to codeforces to participate in the contest in my spare time. This time I also prepared some problems to propose a round, but for some reasons, most of them were rejected. In particular, one of my favorite problems was rejected because "many testers don't like it". I'm a little frustrated, but I also understand that the coordinator's job is to make the round better and more people like this round. I think it's a great honor to prepare round on codeforces and let so many people around the world try to solve the problem I prepared. I will accumulate some more interesting ideas for the next round and try to make more people like the problems I prepared.

I'd like to express my great gratitude to my friends for preparing this round with me, I don't think I can prepare this round alone without them. I really appreciate having the support of my good friends in my round.

In addition, the three naughty cats mentioned in the statement.(*=｀ω´=)ﾉ I understand that I shouldn't post pictures irrelevant to the statement, so I post it here ↓

Finally, I hope you like the problems in this round, good luck and have fun!(≧ω≦)/

The score distribution will soon be published.

UPD1: Although our coordinator allows to post the PDF of Chinese statements in the contest material, it seems that codeforces does not allow it. We are only allowed to post something after the round. So we will still post Chinese tutorials after the round.

UPD2: List of contributors is a bit changed, and the score distribution will be:

• Div.2: 500 — (750 + 1000) — 1250 — 2000 — 2000 — 2750

• Div.1: 500 — 1250 — 1250 — 2000 — 2500 — 3500

UPD3: Note that the score of the last problem of Div.1 has changed, 4000 → 3500.

UPD4: Editorial is out, and Chinese Tutorial will soon be published.

UPD5: Chinese Tutorial is out.

UPD6: Congratulations to the winners!

Div.1:

1. maroonrk

2. tourist

3. eecs

4. ainta

5. duality

Div.2:

1. NiNiV

2. WA_On_Pretest2_Forces

3. ouql

4. KroosTheKeenGlint

5. jialiang250

I'm glad to invite you to Codeforces Round 788 (Div. 2), which will be held on May/06/2022 17:35 (Moscow time).

This round is rated for the participants with rating lower than 2100.

You will be given 6 problems and 2 hours to solve them. All problems were prepared by me, Hemose and ZerooCool.

I would like to thank:

• Monogon, for a lot of things (awesome coordination, helping in preparation, rejecting only not interesting tasks and a lot of useful discussions).

• I_Love_Slim for teaching us BLABIZO useful concepts.

• Our army of testers YahiaSherif, TripleM5da, TheScrasse, Bakry, IsaacMoris, TeaTime, magnus.hegdahl, generic_placeholder_name, NemanjaSo2005, Abdelrahman_Etman, TheSawan, gojira, Priyam2k, Urvuk3, Menna-Allah05, Khater.

• MikeMirzayanov, for the amazing Codeforces and Polygon platforms.

• NEAR for supporting this round, details can be found in this post.

The statements are short and we have tried to make the pretests strong. I encourage you to read all the problems.

For people who don't like stories, you will find all the stories written in italic you can skip them safely.

We are sincerely looking forward to your participation. We hope everyone will enjoy it.

Good luck and see you in the standings!

UPD: The score distribution is 500-1000-1750-2250-2750-3000.

UPD: We hope you liked the problems, here is the Editorial

Hello! Codeforces Round 787 (Div. 3) will start at May/05/2022 17:35 (Moscow time). You will be offered 6-7 problems with expected difficulties to compose an interesting competition for participants with ratings up to 1600. However, all of you who wish to take part and have a rating of 1600 or higher, can register for the round unofficially.

The round will be hosted by rules of educational rounds (extended ACM-ICPC). Thus, solutions will be judged on preliminary tests during the round, and after the round, it will be a 12-hour phase of open hacks.

You will be given 6-7 problems and 2 hours and 15 minutes to solve them.

Note that the penalty for the wrong submission in this round (and the following Div. 3 rounds) is 10 minutes.

Remember that only the trusted participants of the third division will be included in the official standings table. As it is written by link, this is a compulsory measure for combating unsporting behavior. To qualify as a trusted participant of the third division, you must:

take part in at least five rated rounds (and solve at least one problem in each of them), do not have a point of 1900 or higher in the rating. Regardless of whether you are a trusted participant of the third division or not, if your rating is less than 1600, then the round will be rated for you.

Thanks to MikeMirzayanov for the platform, help with ideas for problems and for coordination of our work. Problems have been created and written by ITMO University teams: MikeMirzayanov, MisterGu, myav, Gol_D, Aris, senjougaharin, me Vladosiya.

Also many thanks to avevad, yorky, UncleSema, vsinitsynav, GoracioNewport, Tvorozh0k, any_nickname, I.AM.THE.WILL and Jostic11 for testing the contest and valuable feedback.

Good luck!

UPD:Editorial

Hello! Codeforces Round 786 (Div. 3) will start at May/02/2022 17:35 (Moscow time). You will be offered 6 or 7 problems (or 8) with expected difficulties to compose an interesting competition for participants with ratings up to 1600. However, all of you who wish to take part and have rating 1600 or higher, can register for the round unofficially.

The round will be hosted by rules of educational rounds (extended ACM-ICPC). Thus, during the round, solutions will be judged on preliminary tests, and after the round it will be a 12-hour phase of open hacks.

You will be given 6 or 7 (or 8) problems and 2 hours to solve them.

Note that the penalty for the wrong submission in this round (and the following Div. 3 rounds) is 10 minutes.

Remember that only the trusted participants of the third division will be included in the official standings table. As it is written by link, this is a compulsory measure for combating unsporting behavior. To qualify as a trusted participants of the third division, you must:

• take part in at least two rated rounds (and solve at least one problem in each of them),
• do not have a point of 1900 or higher in the rating.

Regardless of whether you are a trusted participant of the third division or not, if your rating is less than 1600, then the round will be rated for you.

The problems were invented and prepared by Adilbek adedalic Dalabaev, Alexander fcspartakm Frolov, Ivan BledDest Androsov and Mikhail awoo Piklyaev. Also huge thanks to Mike MikeMirzayanov Mirzayanov for great systems Polygon and Codeforces.

Also huge thanks to ashmelev, Vladosiya, mesanu and I.AM.THE.WILL for testing the round and valuable feedback on the problems!

Good luck!

UPD: Editorial is published!

Hello Codeforces,

I invite you to participate in Codeforces Round 785 (Div. 2) which will be held on Apr/30/2022 17:35 (Moscow time). The round will be rated for participants of Division 2 with rating strictly less than 2100. But as always, the participants of Division 1 are welcome to take part out of competition.

You will be given 6 problems and 2 hours to solve them. Moreover, there will be atleast $$$1$$$ and atmost $$$1048576$$$ interactive problems. So, you are advised to refer to the guide on interactive problems in case you are not familiar with them.

I would like to thank the following people for their contribution to the round:

• Artyom123 for his amazing coordination, helping me throughout the preparation of the round and translating the statements.
• Um_nik, Monogon, kclee2172, TheScrasse, yash_daga, Sad_reacts_only, AlperenT, Utkarsh.25dec, abhidot, PR_0202, towrist, Rubalien, hritik31, snowysecret, alok_k6618 and harsh2804 for testing the round and providing their feedback.
• MikeMirzayanov for the great Codeforces and Polygon platforms.
• NEAR for supporting this round, details can be found in this post.
• You for participating.

This will be my second Codeforces round and based on the feedback by participants on Round #730, I have implemented the following changes:

• The round will have no theme. I have tried to keep the problem statements as short and to the point as possible.
• The pretests have been made stronger (specifically, more pretests have been included).
• I have tried to keep the samples and their explanation as useful as possible.
• No floating-point precision issues this time.
• The I/O constraints for the interactive problem(s) have been kept low to provide a fair ground to the languages with slower I/O.

The score distribution will be released strictly before the round and the editorial will be released strictly after the round.

Good luck and have fun!

UPD: The score distribution is $$$500-750-1500-2000-2750-3250$$$.

UPD: Editorial

UPD: Congratulations to the winners

Div. 1 + Div. 2 -

1. ksun48
2. I_love_teraqqq
3. JiBaDa
4. Geothermal
5. errorgorn

Div. 2 -

1. JiBaDa
2. A-SOUL_Ava
3. Beduardo
4. happy-potato
5. Moomer

First solves -

Hello, Codeforces!

We are thrilled to announce the dates of our annual online programming competition, the SIT & JUB STAR Contest 2022, organized by the Schaffhausen Institute of Technology (SIT) in Switzerland and our partner Jacobs University Bremen (JUB) in Germany.

Winners will have the chance to receive exciting prizes, including a full scholarship for Master in Computer Science and Software Engineering program.

What is the SIT & JUB STAR Contest?

The goal of the SIT & JUB STAR Contest is to promote interest in the field of Computer Science and Software Engineering, giving participants an opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge of programming. It is also a winning ticket for full scholarship to a master program. To participate, click here.

The SIT & JUB STAR Contest 2022 timetable

April 16 15:00 (UTC), 2022 | Practice Round: An opportunity to familiarize yourself with the testing environment. You can practice any time from April 16 to 5 minutes before the Final Round. This is an optional step but we highly recommend taking part in it. The results of this round will not affect your final score.

April 26 08:00 (UTC), 2022 | SIT & JUB STAR Contest: The contest starts at 8 am, UTC, on April 26. You have 4 hours to complete all requested tasks, which include 8 to 12 problems of various levels of difficulty in algorithmic programming.

DATES | Interview Round and Winner Announcements: Participants with the highest scores will be invited for the interview round with professors from SIT and Jacobs University Bremen. Winners will be notified by email.

Prizes

Several prizes are offered to the top candidates:

• Full scholarships for the Master in Computer Science and Software Engineer program offered in Switzerland and Germany
• Other scholarship options available
• Some exciting gifts from Switzerland and Germany!

Who can participate?

Everyone is welcome! The contest is open for all ages and skill levels, all you need is a passion for coding.

To be eligible to win the full scholarship, please consult the following guidelines.

How can I participate?

• Fill out the contest registration form here.
• Register at Codeforces using a special link you will receive in the confirmation email. Please fill in the same email address you used in the registration form.
• If you have any further queries, please reach out to [email protected]

About the Master in Computer Science and Software Engineering

Our 2-year hybrid Master in Computer Science and Software Engineer brings the latest must-knows in science, tech and business, through lively lectures by renowned field leaders and hands-on lab activities. With this program, go from studying in Schaffhausen in Switzerland, known for its excellence in IT science and technology, to Bremen in Germany, a vibrant campus for English-speaking students, with a rich academic tradition. Click here to learn more.

About SIT and Jacobs University Bremen

SIT is a global institution dedicated to promoting Science, Education and Technology. Headquartered in Schaffhausen, Switzerland, SIT is a growing ecosystem comprised of a non-profit component, with education and research, as well as commercial technology spin-offs, consulting services, a start-up incubator and investment funds.

Thanks to its two English-language campuses – in Bremen, Germany and in Schaffhausen, Switzerland – SIT offers interdisciplinary university programs to students from around the globe with flexible learning models. With a research-centric approach and an entrepreneurial mentality at its core, the SIT education ecosystem is a gateway to the next generation of digital leaders.

We look forward to seeing you show off your programming skills on competition day.

Good luck!

The Southwestern Europe Regional Contest will take place on the 23rd of April. It is the ICPC regional contest (i.e., the winning teams will advance to the ICPC World Finals) for teams from France, Israel, Italy, Portugal, Spain, and Switzerland.

The mirror contest SWERC 2021-2022 - Online Mirror (Unrated, ICPC Rules, Teams Preferred) will be held on Codeforces at Apr/24/2022 14:05 (Moscow time) and will last 5 hours.

The mirror contest will contain all the problems from the official competition plus some additional problems.

I am the chief judge for the competition and I want to thank:

• The amazing set of judges who proposed and prepared the problems: cescmentation_folch, cip999, Delfad0r, gangsterveggies, Giove, gog.gerard, majk, Petr, Simon, tap_tapii.
• The MIT team composed of heuristica, TLE, antontrygubO_o for testing the round and Philae for proofreading the statements.
• Everyone involved in the organization of SWERC, in particular Dariost (director), edomora97 (technical director), Gianpaolo Agosta (director) and wil93 (secretary).
• MikeMirzayanov for Polygon (that we used to prepare the problems) and for letting us host the mirror on Codeforces.

I invite you to participate in the contest and I hope that you will like the problems.

On the difficulty
The contest features problems with difficulties from div2A to div1F; so anyone can find something at their level.

Many teams without much experience participate in SWERC, so the problem set should be enjoyable also for div2 contestants. On the other hand, solving all the problems should be challenging even for the strongest teams in the world: the MIT team did not AK in 5 hours.

How did you manage to get such good quality of the problems...
Who are the setters?
One of the best problem sets I have seen if not best

Rules

1. The contest is unrated, so your codeforces rating will not be affected.
2. The scoring is ICPC-style: teams are first sorted by number of problems solved, then the time-penalty is used as a tie-break. An incorrect submission gives a 20 minutes penalty.
3. We encourage participation as a team.
4. If you are participating in a team, we encourage you to use only one computer for coding the solutions (as in an ICPC contest). Regarding using templates and copy-pasting code: feel free to do it.

UPDATE: We hope you liked the problems, here is the editorial for all the problems in the mirror: https://codeforces.net/blog/entry/102042 .

UPDATE: Congratulatins to the all the participants of the onsite contest and in particular to the two gold medal winning teams, both solving 10 problems (and with a very similar penalty time):

1. Raw Pots -- Harbour.Space University
2. TAU++ -- Tel Aviv University

And congratulations also to the four teams who managed to solve all the problems in the mirror:

1. tourist, ksun48
2. jiangly
3. Merkurev, KAN, Um_nik
4. djq_cpp, hehezhou, jqdai0815

On Apr/23/2022 17:05 (Moscow time), we will host Codeforces Global Round 20.

Note the unusual timing, it is 30 minutes earlier.

This is the second round of the 2022 series of Codeforces Global Rounds. The rounds are open and rated for everybody.

The prizes for this round:

• 30 best participants get a t-shirt.
• 20 t-shirts are randomly distributed among those with ranks between 31 and 500, inclusive.

The prizes for the 6-round series in 2022:

• In each round top-100 participants get points according to the table.
• The final result for each participant is equal to the sum of points he gets in the four rounds he placed the highest.
• The best 20 participants over all series get sweatshirts and place certificates.

Thanks to XTX, which in 2022 supported the global rounds initiaitive!

All problems were written and prepared by errorgorn, maomao90 and oolimry.

We would like to thank the following people who made this round possible:

• antontrygubO_o for coordinating our round and somehow only rejecting 2 div2As.
• oolimry for contributing to national defence and keeping Singapore safe.
• dario2994 for being the best tester. The perfect tester does not exist but I think dario2994 comes really close to it.
• tqbfjotld, gamegame,dorijanlendvaj, dario2994, kclee2172, Monogon, nvmdava, TheScrasse, jamessngg, pavement, iLoveIOI, AlperenT, icypiggy, timreizin, Myrcella, DeMen100ns, KasenIbaraki, bWayne, chicken337, joelau for testing the round and providing useful feedback.
• MikeMirzayanov for Codeforces and Polygon.

You will have 3 hours to solve 9 problems, one of which is divided into two subtasks.

The scoring distribution is 250-500-750-1000-1500-(1250+1250)-2750-3000-4000. GLHF!

Also, please upvote the blog so that I can get more contribution than antontrygubO_o.

PS: We would like to take this opportunity to congratulate rotavirus or antontrygubX_y on getting married. Wishing you lots of love and happiness.

Edit: Editorial is released. Even if you have solved a problem, we encourage you to read the editorial as you might learn something new from it.

Hello Codeforces!

On Apr/22/2022 17:35 (Moscow time) Educational Codeforces Round 127 (Rated for Div. 2) will start.

Series of Educational Rounds continue being held as Harbour.Space University initiative! You can read the details about the cooperation between Harbour.Space University and Codeforces in the blog post.

This round will be rated for the participants with rating lower than 2100. It will be held on extended ICPC rules. The penalty for each incorrect submission until the submission with a full solution is 10 minutes. After the end of the contest you will have 12 hours to hack any solution you want. You will have access to copy any solution and test it locally.

You will be given 6 or 7 problems and 2 hours to solve them.

The problems were invented and prepared by Adilbek adedalic Dalabaev, Vladimir vovuh Petrov, Ivan BledDest Androsov, Maksim Neon Mescheryakov and me. Also huge thanks to Mike MikeMirzayanov Mirzayanov for great systems Polygon and Codeforces.

Good luck to all the participants!

UPD: Editorial is out