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Hello, Codeforces!

Codeforces Round #645 (Div. 2) will start at May/26/2020 17:35 (Moscow time). This round will be rated for the participants with rating lower than 2100. You will have 2 hours to solve 6 problems.

Problems of this round were prepared by Alexey Alexdat2000 Datskovskiy, Ilian ilian04 Andrianov, Vsevolod Sevlll Lepeshov. We have made an effort to create interesting problems, beautiful statements and strong tests. We wish you like problems and your rating increase.

We would like to express our gratitude to:

• MikeMirzayanov for wonderful platforms Codeforces and Polygon!

• 300iq for excellent coordination and helpful advices!

• Thanks to Siberian, mohammedehab2002, Degalat57, Kuroni, pajenegod, hugopm, Dart-Xeyter, alexxela12345, FlameDragon, Monogon, YanikusGG, Mangooste, mbolgov, Ziware, xiryss for delightful testing!

• Special thanks to testers imachug, dorijanlendvaj, antontrygubO_o,_overrated_ and Allvik06 for help in finding errors in problems!

UPD 1: Scoring distribution: 500 — 750 — 1500 — 1500 — 2000 — 2500

Hello everyone.

In the coming days I will finish the implementation of small changes in the rating calculation for new accounts. Here are the main innovations.

• The rating of the new account will be equal to $$$0$$$ for display (but it will be equal to $$$1400$$$ when calculating rating changes).
• Suppose, after the first round, the participant gained $$$d_1$$$ rating points (remember that the rating was considered equal to $$$1400$$$ in such calculations), then in the rating display after this round $$$500+d_1$$$ will be displayed. Thus, after the first participation, the rating is likely to increase from $$$0$$$ to a value in the region of $$$500$$$ (plus or minus $$$300$$$ approximately).
• Thus, before the second participation, the displayed rating is $$$500+d_1$$$, and the rating for calculating changes is $$$1400+d_1$$$. Suppose a new change is $$$d_2$$$, then the displayed rating becomes $$$500+d_1+350+d_2$$$.
• Thus, before the third participation, the displayed rating is $$$500+d_1+350+d_2$$$, and the rating for calculating changes is $$$1400+d_1+d_2$$$. Suppose a new change is $$$d_3$$$, then the displayed rating becomes $$$500+d_1+350+d_2+250+d_3$$$.
• And so on the first $$$6$$$ rounds. Promotions of the displayed rating will be equal to $$$500, 350, 250, 150, 100, 50$$$ (in total exactly $$$1400$$$). Therefore, after participating in $$$6$$$ rounds, the rating is “stabilized” and the displayed rating will be equal to the one used to recalculate the changes.

Thus, on average, for new accounts at an early stage, the rating will increase, getting closer to the real value. These innovations will help solve several issues:

• We are reducing the starting rating from $$$1500 $$$ to $$$ 1400$$$, so that new accounts make a smaller contribution to the overall rating.
• Currently, especially for inexperienced participants, there is an effect that their rating at the beginning of participation is constantly falling (from $$$1500$$$ to the value that is a true assessment of their skills). This, of course, leads to discomfort: you try, participate, solve some problems, but the rating drops.
• The previous paragraph gives additional motivation to create new accounts. If your current rating is less than $$$1500$$$, then there is a temptation to start from scratch with a fresh account. After the changes, such a start will require a noticeable long-term effort to climb at least your current rating. It seems that the changes should slightly reduce the motivation to create new accounts.

Apparently, a similar idea is used on AtCoder, but I don't know the details.

What do you think about such improvement? Sounds good?

Hello, Codeforces!

We have planned this round as a Div. 4, but testing showed us, that problems are more suitable for Div. 3. Therefore, instead of the previously announced Div. 4 we will hold Div. 3 round.

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Hello! Codeforces Round #644 (Div. 3) will start at May/24/2020 16:35 (Moscow time). You will be offered 8 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 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. I tried to make strong tests — just like you will be upset if many solutions fail after the contest is over.

You will be given 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 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 for this round were invented by MikeMirzayanov and prepared by me and Stepavly

Thanks to MikeMirzayanov for platforms and coordination of our work. Thanks to antontrygubO_o, iankury, bfs.07, kocko, Ilya-bar, arsijo, pashka, Gassa, neal, vovuh for help in round preparation and testing the round.

Good luck!

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UPD: Editorial is out

Microsoft's Quantum team is excited to announce the Q# Coding Contest – Summer 2020, the third in the series of Q# contests! In this contest you can put your quantum programming skills to the test, solving quantum computing tasks in Q#. The winners (as well as some lucky participants) will receive a Microsoft Quantum T-shirt!

Quantum computing is a radically different computing paradigm compared to classical computing. Indeed, it is so different that some tasks that are believed to be classically intractable (such as factoring integers or simulating physical systems) can be performed efficiently on a quantum computer. In December 2017 Microsoft introduced the Quantum Development Kit which includes the Q# programming language.

In summer of 2018 we hosted the first quantum programming contest, which included problems on introductory topics in quantum computing: superposition, measurement, quantum oracles and simple algorithms. In winter of 2019 we hosted the second quantum programming contest, which offered harder problems on those topics plus some tasks on implementing unitary transformations. This contest will introduce new types of tasks, as well as some twists on the previous ones.

The contest will run from June 19 to June 22. As usual, we will hold a warmup round the weekend before the contest, from June 12 to June 15, to give you an opportunity to get familiar with the contest environment and submission system before the main contest. Participation in the warmup round is optional.

Good luck! We hope you enjoy the contest!

The rules of the contest are:

Hello Codeforces!

On May/17/2020 12:20 (Moscow time) Educational Codeforces Round 87 (Rated for Div. 2) will start.

Please notice the unusual time.

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 Roman Roms Glazov, Adilbek adedalic Dalabaev, Vladimir vovuh Petrov, Ivan BledDest Androsov, Maksim Ne0n25 Mescheryakov and me. Also huge thanks to Mike MikeMirzayanov Mirzayanov for great systems Polygon and Codeforces.

Also thanks to Neal neal Wu for testing.

Good luck to all the participants!

Our friends at Harbour.Space also have a message for you:

Hi Codeforces!

We would like to invite you to a very special webinar called Digital Lockdown: AI against COVID-19, by Sergey Gordeychik, director of our Cyber Security programme.

Sergey is CIO of Inception Institute of Artificial Intelligence, and former CTO at Kaspersky.

During this webinar, Sergey will share his expertise and insights on how AI is being used both positively and negatively, during the COVID-19 global pandemic. Tune in for some practical examples of how companies are using AI to innovate and disrupt during a time of crisis, exploring topics like Medical Imaging for CT analysis, diagnosis and mass surveillance.

Join us on Thursday, May 28th at 12h (BCN) to gain knowledge and deepen your understanding about how we can use AI to solve both operational and societal problems.

By participating in this 1hour webinar you will get a certificate of participation, a special digital gift from Sergey, and have the chance to win a FREE 3-week module at Harbour.Space University, depending on the availability and prerequisites of the course.

Congratulations to the winners:

Congratulations to the best hackers:

And finally people who were the first to solve each problem:

UPD: Editorial is out

Hello, Codeforces!

I'm glad to invite you to Round 643 which will start at May/16/2020 14:35 (Moscow time). Please notice the unusual time.

There will be 6 problems in round, one of them will be interactive. If you are not familiar with interactive problems, you can learn about them here.

Round is based on Team Olympiad in Lipetsk which is being held for the fifth time. Problems were prepared by fake123, iura, Masha237, Villen3tenmerth, Inessa Shujkova (Lipetsk teams' coach) and me. I would like to thank antontrygubO_o for CF round coordination and testers: KAN, I_love_Tanya_Romanova, vepifanov, Merkurev, golikovnik, Ekler and some other people who asked me not to write about them :)

Of course, I'd like to thank all Codeforces team for this beautiful platform!

Scoring distribution will be announced later.

Wish you good luck and high rating!

UPD.1 Scoring distribution: $$$750-750-1250-1500-2000-3000$$$.

UPD.2 Editorial is available here.

UPD.3 Congratulations to winners!

Official participants:

1. NaimSS

2. tianxiawoyou

3. McDonald

4. wisteria0410ss

5. TheOneYouWant

Unofficial participants:

1. risujiroh

2. jiangly

3. kefaa2

4. hitonanode

5. turmax

UPD.4 Full problemset from the olympiad is available on gym: The fifth Lipetsk collegiate programming contest. Finals. 8-11 form

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Hello! Codeforces Round #642 (Div. 3) will start at May/14/2020 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. I tried to make strong tests — just like you will be upset if many solutions fail after the contest is over.

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.

Thanks to MikeMirzayanov for the platform, help with ideas for problems and for coordination of my work. Thanks to my good friends Daria ZeroAmbition Stepanova, Mikhail pikmike Piklyaev, Maksim Ne0n25 Mescheryakov and Ivan BledDest Androsov for help in round preparation and testing the round. Also thanks to Artem Rox Plotkin and Dmitrii _overrated_ Umnov for the discussion of ideas and testing the round!

Good luck!

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UPD: Thanks to ma_da_fa_ka, Jaydeep999997, abhishek_saini, infinitepro and socho for testing the round!

UPD2: Editorial is published!

Hello, Codeforces!

We are excited to invite you to Codeforces Round #641 (Div. 1) and Codeforces Round #641 (Div. 2). This round will take place on May/12/2020 15:35 (Moscow time). In both divisions, you will have 2.5 hours to solve 6 problems. Please notice the unusual time.

Problems of this round were prepared by Fulisike, A.K.E.E., mydiplomacy and me ProgSlacking.

We would like to express our sincere gratitude to:

• 300iq, for responsible and interesting coordination;

• WZYYN, Elegia, skip2004, vintage_Vlad_Makeev, fpdqwq, wangziji, Suika_predator, wrg0ababd, AcF-_-FcA, Kirill_from_Kazan, dysyn1314, xiaolou0411, LiM_256, HazyKnight, Sad_reacts_only, djq_cpp, little_waxberry, for their hard-working testing and suggestions;

• tEMMIE.w., for giving suggestions and support throughout the whole preparation of this round;

• Glamorgan, for proofreading and polishing our statements;

• MikeMirzayanov, for excellent Codeforces and Polygon platform.

We have made an effort to create interesting problems, strong tests and clear statements. Wish all of you good luck and have fun! Since the round is rated, we also wish you guys have huge positive $$$\Delta$$$ in this round!

UPD: Tester list updated.

UPD: Tester list is updated again. Apart from that, score distribution is here:

• Div.1: $$$500+1250+1250+2000+2500+(1750+1750)$$$

• Div.2: $$$500+1000+1500+2250+2250+3000$$$

UPD: Hey, it seems that Div.1 is really hard and has bad discrimination. And also, in some problems pretests are weak. We are sorry about our mistakes, and hope you will like these problems after reading editorials here: https://codeforces.com/blog/entry/77284

UPD: Congratulations to the winners!

Div.1:

• Um_nik

• maroonrk

• ainta

• Dmitriy.Belichenko

• ko_osaga

Div.2:

• xiguadeyisheng

• goie

• iotang

• Mirbek_aka

• ldmhoang

Hope you have a nice day! Also you can view a blog by our tester HazyKnight about his opinions of this round: https://codeforces.com/blog/entry/77276

I almost copied my previous blog post to separate two discussions: about Div. 4 in general and about Round 640. Please, visit this blog post to discuss Div. 4 rounds.

Hello Codeforces!

Yes, it is not a mistake I decided to run the first Div. 4 round: Codeforces Round #640 (Div. 4)! It starts on May/09/2020 17:35 (Moscow time).

The format of the event will be identical to Div. 3 rounds:

• 5-8 tasks;
• ICPC rules with a penalty of 10 minutes for an incorrect submission;
• 12-hour phase of open hacks after the end of the round (hacks do not give additional points)
• after the end of the open hacking phase, all solutions will be tested on the updated set of tests and the ratings recalculated
• by default, only "trusted" participants are shown in the results table (but the rating will be recalculated for all with initial ratings less than 1400 or you are unrated participant/newcomer).

I urge participants whose rating is 1400+ not to register new accounts for the purpose of narcissism, but simply to take part unofficially. Please do not spoil the contest to the official participants.

Only trusted participants of the fourth division will be included in the official standings table. This is a forced measure for combating with unsporting behavior. To qualify as a trusted participants of the fourth 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 1600 or higher in the rating.

Regardless of whether you are a trusted participant of the fourth division or not, if your rating is less than 1400 (or you are a newcomer/unrated), then the round will be rated for you.

Please, read some of my thoughts about the problems of this round:

• Don't expect A+B level problems :-) It is a real contest with easy but problems. I hope most problems fit in range D3A-D3D problems.
• I'm not sure about order of problems. Try to read all problems or at least most of them. Testers expressed skepticism about the order of the problems but suggested different pairs of problems to swap.

We are just starting, so the complexity of the problems may deviate somewhere from your or my expectations. Wait and see.

The first "thank you" is sent to antontrygubO_o, who helped with the review and selection of problems.

Many thanks to the testers: pashka, 300iq, vovuh, Golovanov399, spookywooky, kocko, Sho10, igor_kz, Sho10, scott_wu, bfs.07.

I hope you enjoy the problems, and the round will be interesting!

Please, leave in comments your thoughts about exactly this round. If you want to write something about the general idea of Div. 4, then visit this blog post.

UPD: Editorial is published!

Hello Codeforces!

Initially, here was an announcement of the first round for the fourth division. But currently, in comments there is the huge discussion of division 4 rounds in general. Honestly, I read all (almost all) comments.

I decided to replace the text of this post to match the comments better. Also, I'll write one more post separately to discuss problems. And this post will be about division 4 rounds in general.

About Div4 rounds:

• I'm not afraid of a queue or servers overload: it is technical challenges and my task is to resolve them. The previous biggest rounds were not overshadowed by technical problems and judging delays, they went well. I see no reasons why something should work much worse in the rounds for Div. 4 (and if it does, then this should be fixed).

• I don't think that Div. 3 rounds are too dificult. Actually, they are quite good for beginners. They are noticeably easier than Div. 2. Almost every round trusted participants solve all problems, many participants solve all without one problem. I think in general they are OK.

• Now I don't like the idea to run in parallel Div. 3 and Div. 4 rounds (like we do for Div. 1 and Div. 2). Div. 3 rounds are harder to prepare and I don't think we can host them more than once per ~2 weeks. It means that such rounds will not give new contests for newcomers and grays/greens (I think Div. 3 are already interesting rounds for them to take part). But separate Div. 4 rounds will be easier to prepare (even than Div. 3) and probably making them we can offer more contests for low rated participants.

• I'd like to repeat: Div. 3 and Div. 4 rounds doesn't affect the rate of Div. 1 and Div. 2 rounds. The coordinators focus only on Div. 1 and Div. 2 rounds. All Div3 (and future, if any, Div4) rounds are prepared without any help from the coordinators.

• I do not think that by hosting Div. 4 rounds, we will lower the quality of problems. Now, I don't plan to use absolutely A+B level problems even for the Div. 4. I think problems of level like Div3A-Div3D are good candidates.

Thanks for your attention to this idea!