Timosh's blog

Master in a year, Master for a year
By Timosh, history, 3 hours ago, In English

Help needed, how to reach IM?

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3 hours ago, hide # |
 
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Probably have long conversations with better users, not necessarily to solve hard problems but just to understand how they think and approach things. That said Candidate Master is still really impressive. No shame if that's the cap of your abilities. But if you want to improve past there I feel you should generally work together with other talented people. Coding and data structure knowledge is now the expectation. Creativity and analytical thinking is what matters. That said this is all just how I feel about how things are at the top. I'm nowhere close to either your or any IM's level. I'd reach out to the pros directly for better advice.

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    3 hours ago, hide # ^ |
     
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    Timosh was like 8 rating off of IM, I'm sure in lucky circumstances and a few good contests he is capable of IM. With that being said, this peak was in a time of less rating deflation so it may be harder now but I don't think that 2292 is the hard cap of his abilities. Also I would argue that coding ability is more likely to have a bigger impact than novel thinking. If he had been slightly faster in the contests leading up to his peak, it is very possible he could have made the 8 points to be IM. A modest increasing in impl speed can have impacts on several contests whereas the payoff for increased creativity is typically only when you solve an additional problem (or solve one faster than you would otherwise) and I feel that an increase in speed is more doable than increase in creativity or thinking

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3 hours ago, hide # |
 
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I don't have the answer either, but here's something I want to tell you: a plateau can be really, really long — mine has been. This past year I trained a ton, and I realized CF rounds are a whole different beast from ordinary ones. They have their own system of methodology. A lot of the time you have to read the setter's mind — even guess the first couple of steps of the solution — before the rest just falls into place. And regular practice doesn't build that skill at all. Let's both keep improving.

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I guess I need your help

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