Hello Codeforces!

On Jan/16/2022 17:35 (Moscow time) Educational Codeforces Round 121 (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!

omg hi Codeforces!

ScarletS, flamestorm, fishy15, saarang, lookcook and I are glad to invite you to our Codeforces round, Codeforces Round #766 (Div. 2), which will be held on Jan/15/2022 17:35 (Moscow time). This round will be rated for participants with rating lower than 2100.

We would like to thank:

• Monogon senpai for excellent coordination of the contest.

• MikeMirzayanov, for creating the amazing Codeforces and Polygon platforms!

• KAN, for Russian translations!

• dorijanlendvaj, errorgorn, PurpleCrayon, generic_placeholder_name, blue, polarity-, atharv, epicxtroll, dbsic211, StArChAn, namanbansal013, BRCode, nishuz, Rehan, Urvuk3, sid., tdpencil and bakekaga for testing the round, catching any mistakes and providing lots of valuable feedback! We tried to get a large range of testers with different coding experiences so that everybody enjoys the round.

You will have 2 hours to work on (and solve!) 6 problems. There will be at most five hundred interactive problems in the round. Make sure to read this blog and familiarize yourself with these types of problems before the round! You are highly encouraged to read all the problems ;).

Good luck, and see you on the scoreboard!

UPD1: Thanks to the testers ak2006 for making video editorials for most of the problems, and namanbansal013 who will be streaming solutions after the round!

UPD2: The score distribution is $$$500-1250-1250-1750-2000-2750$$$.

UPD3: The editorial is available here.

Hello, Codeforces!

We invite you to Codeforces Round #765 (Div. 2), which will take place in Jan/12/2022 15:05 (Moscow time). Note the unusual contest start time. This round will be rated for all the participants whose ratings are lower than 2100.

You will have to solve 5 problems in 2 hours. One of the problems will be divided into easy and hard version. The round is based on the problems from Belarusian Regional olympiad. We kindly ask all Belarusian pupils who participated in this olympiad, to refrain from taking part in this round and discussing the problems publicly before the round ends.

Thanks to everyone who helped to prepare this contest:

• Our coordinators, KAN and isaf27 for good coordination.
• Wind_Eagle, gepardo, VEGAnn, andrew for help in preparing the round.
• programmer228, Vladik for testing the round.
• MikeMirzayanov for making nice systems Codeforces and Polygon.

The scoring distribution: 500-1000-1500-2000-(2000+1250)

Good luck to everyone!

UPD: Finally the editorial is available.

Hello! Codeforces Round #764 (Div. 3) will start at Jan/10/2022 17:35 (Moscow time). You will be offered 7-8 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 of 1600 or higher, can register for the round unofficially.

The round will be hosted by rules of educational rounds (extended 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 7-8 problems and 2 hours and 15 minutes to solve them. One of the problems in this round is interactive. Don't forget to read the guide on interactive problems.

Note that the penalty for the wrong submission in this round 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 team: MikeMirzayanov, MisterGu, myav, Gol_D, Aris, SixtyWithoutExam and Vladosiya.

We would like to thank: itohdak, Yogi79, smtcoder, Ra16bit, Tlatoani, nigus, MrDindows, leaf1415, Kniaz, Alireza, mini4141, Jostic11, BitHashTech, An_yujin, Bugman и sodafago for testing the contest and valuable feedback. List of testers will be updated.

Good luck!

UPD: Here is a photo of our team answering your questions during the round:

UPD 2: Editorial

But why not!

Many people here seem to know me. Or maybe not quite? I am ready to answer your questions. Ask me anything! I plan to spend no more than 3 hours on answers. Sorry if I can't answer all the questions.

Let's more or less follow the rules from here https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/wiki/index

Below is actually a quote from the rules.

The interviewee begins the process by starting a post, describing who they are and what they do. Then commenters from across the internet leave questions and can vote on other questions according to which they would like to see answered.

The interviewee can go through and reply to the questions they find interesting and easily see those questions the internet is dying to have the answer to.

Because the internet is asking the questions, they're going to be a mix of serious and lighthearted, and you'll find yourself sharing all kinds of things you won't find in a normal interview.

Comments will be removed under a few circumstances:

• Abusive or harassing comments.
• Requests for personal favors from the OP (For example, "OP, can you send me a signed autograph").
• Top-level comments must ask a question.
• Comments where there would be no possibility of a real answer, especially where it is deliberately creepy or offensive.
• "I bet OP won't answer this"-type responses, which usually come after the OP has finished responding to questions.
• "Fluff," non-contributing responses from users, responding to all of the OP's comments for karma/attention.
• Repeatedly asking the same question.

Please, don't attempt to bypass the rules by adding a ? to a nonquestion.

Questions must be directed toward the individual(s) doing the IAMA.

Under our policies, astroturfing is the practice of an individual or group of individuals who plant questions in an IAmA post for a particular purpose. This kind of behavior is forbidden.

UPD 1: Oh, I'm kind of tired of doing this. Please keep asking questions. Tomorrow I will answer again. Don't forget to vote for the most interesting ones. I will not have time to answer everything, I will choose something. Thanks!

UPD 2:

Hi, Codeforces! Happy New Year!

I'm glad to invite you to Hello 2022, which will take place on Jan/03/2022 17:35 (Moscow time). You will have $$$2$$$ hours $$$15$$$ minutes to solve the problems. This round is rated for everyone.

All problems are authored by me. I would like to thank 74TrAkToR for excellent round coordination and MikeMirzayanov for great Codeforces and Polygon.

• Thanks to isaf27, Nebuchadnezzar, MichsSS, TadijaSebez, ijxjdjd, Um_nik, flamestorm, I_Remember_Olya_ashmelev, Monogon, errorgorn, Mr.Robot_28, AlexLuchianov, Kirill22, Prokhor08, romanasa, Dragonado, arseny.__., magnus.hegdahl, Olly_Z, DIvanCode, lox123, wxhtzdy, voventa, DanShaders, ptd, PurpleCrayon, stevancv for testing the round and giving valuable feedback.
• Thanks to Kapt, MForest for discussing some of the problems before the proposal with me.

There can be an interactive problem in this round. Don't forget to read the guide on interactive problems.

The scoring is $$$500-1000-1500-1750-2250-2750-3000-3500-4500$$$.

Good luck!

Editorial

Thank you for participation! Congratulations to the winners:

1. tourist

2. maroonrk

3. Radewoosh

4. Benq

5. djq_fpc

6. mnbvmar

7. ainta

8. mhq

9. ecnerwala

10. Rebelz

Hey!

Are you celebrating the New Year already? I wish you a Happy New Year. I wish you progress, joy and health.

We decided to show the current progress in the catalog of significant Codeforces posts.

So far, quite a bit has been implemented, but somehow you can already use it! Would you like to see it? Follow the link:

As planned, the catalog will collect and classify interesting and useful posts from Codeforces. Indeed, many useful articles have been written in Codeforces over 12 years (God, already 12 years!).

The catalog will be a kind of Codeforces golden fund in the future.

The catalog is a tree of topics to which posts can be added. We will still work on its functionality, for now there are only basic features. Don't be discouraged if something is not supported, which is very necessary — just let me know!

Any red user can enable directory editing. Remember that it is extremely important to make all changes thoughtfully and carefully. The tree should not become infinite in size. You need to have a sense of proportion when detailing topics. Please add only good, useful articles to the directory. If there is a disagreement on the contents of the catalog, the administration will make the final decision.

Hope this will be helpful. And together we can put together a catalog and keep the catalog up to date.

P.S. Many thanks to KAN who helped a lot with suggestions and catalog initial content.

Hello Codeforces!

We have a pleasure to invite you to Good Bye 2021, which will take place on Dec/29/2021 18:35 (Moscow time). You will have 2 hours to solve the problems. The round will be rated for participants of both divisions.

The problems for this round were prepared by 300iq, with the help of excellent coordinators KAN and 74TrAkToR.

We would like to thank all the testers, who made this round possible: gamegame, thenymphsofdelphi, ko_osaga, golions, Ashishgup, izban, prabowo, 74TrAkToR, Devil, manish.17, taran_1407, minhcool, AlFlen, Utkarsh.25dec, NemanjaSo2005, wxhtzdy, ajit, mnaeraxr, Scrubpai, YashDwivedi, eatmore!

And of course, MikeMirzayanov for great platforms Codeforces and Polygon.

This round is supported by NEAR, a company founded by former competitor AlexSkidanov. NEAR is built by many prominent competitive programmers, including twice ICPC champion eatmore and GCJ and TCO winner Egor.

The participants who end up in the first 255 positions will receive prizes. The participant on the first place will receive Ⓝ128, the next two participants will receive Ⓝ64, the next four participants will receive Ⓝ32, etc.

NEAR is a modern blockchain protocol and a development platform. NEAR applications have digital assets as a first class concept, and are hosted in a way that anyone can ascertain the correctness of their execution. This allows building applications that by design provide users with ownership over their assets, data and the power of governance.

If you want to try building on top of NEAR, join Metabuild, a hackathon running until February with $1M in prizes: https://metabuild.devpost.com/

We hope you will enjoy the problem set! Good luck!

Congratulations the winners!

1. tourist
2. ecnerwala
3. ksun48
4. Radewoosh
5. Benq

UPD: Editorial

Hello.

Here's a small improvement for posts and comments. Likes can now be specified in their markup. Maybe this will be useful for organizing some kind of polls or collecting feedback.

Here are some examples:

Yes, I know that this feature can be improved. I would prefer that we try to use it a little and understand what exactly is missing the most. Maybe we need to implement the fully functional polls.

Let's do a small survey using the new feature.

1. What is your age range?

   • under 16:
   • 16-20:
   • 21-25:
   • 26-35:
   • 36+:

2. Tabs or spaces?

   • tabs:
   • spaces:

3. Have you had covid??

   • yes:
   • no:
   • I don't know:

4. Lately, there have been a lot of meaningless blogs on Codeforces. Is it worth strengthening measures to fight against them?

   • yes definitely:
   • rather yes, but not necessarily:
   • rather no, I read some of them:
   • no definitely:

Hello Codeforces!

Kotlin Heroes: Episode 8 was the third round of the Kotlin Heroes series in 2021. The “8” from “Kotlin Heroes: Episode 8” symbolizes our infinite respect for all who participated! We are very happy to see new people learn Kotlin and perform brilliantly in the competition. All the previous rounds are available to be used for practice here: Episode 1, Episode 2, Episode 3, Episode 4, Episode 5: ICPC Round, Episode 6, and Episode 7.

Сongratulations to the top three contestants:

• SpyCheese
• Heltion
• eatmore

A Kotlin Heroes t-shirt and exclusive Kotlin stickers will be presented to:

These participants also won branded t-shirts:

We will contact the winners soon to coordinate the delivery of your prizes!

The Kotlin Heroes: Episode 8 practice round took place during the ICPC World Finals. Gennady “tourist” Korotkevich, a repeat winner of Kotlin Heroes, was solving the practice round tasks during the event opening. We invite you to watch this presentation.

For those who would like to get to know Kotlin better, we invite you to check out Kotlin Basics track on JetBrains Academy, take a look at basic Kotlin, solve Koans in the free course from JetBrains Educational Products, visit Kotlin Playground, check out the tutorial, and these videos on competitive programming in Kotlin.

More information about Kotlin Heroes contests: https://kotlinlang.org/lp/kotlin-heroes/.

We wish you luck and hope you enjoy Kotlin!