Petr's blog

A week with beauty
By Petr, 9 years ago, In English

http://petr-mitrichev.blogspot.com/2015/02/this-week-in-competitive-programming.html

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9 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it -7 Vote: I do not like it

Personally, I don't know why you are so pleased with that problem. It is nice, I agree, but it's just 100th problem with flow on modified graph :P. And you should have seen them even more than me :D.

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    9 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it +34 Vote: I do not like it

    Well for one he was the only competitor in the round to solve the problem correctly. I can imagine one must take some pride from that, particularly when the list of competitors includes tourist.

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

      Petr sir won the SRM with an extra question solved continuously for last two SRM _/_

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      9 years ago, # ^ |
        Vote: I like it +8 Vote: I do not like it

      Just pointing out that the main reason this problem got solved by Petr alone is because of the prune corner case, a lot of people would have solved it correctly otherwise.

      But that corner case is not why this problem is interesting at all — it's because it has a pretty simple problem statement and an equally simple yet not obvious at all solution.

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    9 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it +11 Vote: I do not like it

    That's exactly the point. It's just another flow problem but several experienced contestants didn't figure out that small but elegant trick. After all, one's feeling towards a problem is always subjective though :)

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    9 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it +34 Vote: I do not like it

    I guess others in this thread might be right and my feelings might be influenced by the SRM result.

    Still, I think this problem is nicer than 'yet another flow problem'. First, we need to find a very simply described a natural object, and second, as I said in the post, the fact that we don't even have to do condensation makes it much better in my view.

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      9 years ago, # ^ |
        Vote: I like it -20 Vote: I do not like it

      Hm, yes, during that SRM I gave this task a shot and miserably failed, because I thought it's just condensation+flow (I was additionaly annoyed by some technical issues with arena, as always) and fact that we do not need condensation makes it nicer.

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

      Additionally, I think it's nice in the sense that it has a simple statement, it has a very simple solution, but it's still a hard problem. I feel it's quite rare to see problems like this nowadays.

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