NoobCoderPrajwal's blog

Who is "Benq" and how he became LGM so fast
By NoobCoderPrajwal, history, 4 years ago, In English

Benq is current top rated player on Codeforces. All I know about him is that he is from US and started CP in Summer of 2015. He has answered many questions related to CP and also provided resources here. In his first contest on codeforces he solved 0 problems !!(this is shocking). I am just curious that how he became Legendary Grandmaster so fast within 3 years. I also looked at his submission history and initially he was having trouble in solving 1000 rated problems(like a normal human) and then suddenly his ratings kept on rising and rising until he became number 1. He never stopped and keep on moving like river water. He has solved around 3000 problems on codeforces. I am just curious to know more about him. Sorry for bad English.

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4 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +49 Vote: I do not like it

He used to do math olympiads in middle school before CP, making mathcounts Nationals iirc. It's easy for him to pick up on CP because a lot of the math concepts and problem solving skills carry over to programming too.

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4 years ago, # |
← Rev. 4   Vote: I like it +66 Vote: I do not like it

Some useful advice from Benq: int overflow, array bounds special cases (n=1?) do smth instead of nothing and stay organized WRITE STUFF DOWN DON'T GET STUCK ON ONE APPROACH

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4 years ago, # |
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[Deleted]

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4 years ago, # |
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Not belittling Benq, he is certainly a great competitive programmer, but LGM in 3 years is not very fast. It's more like normal? I did it in 3.5 years, Radewoosh — in 2.5 years, and that's considering the fact that it was harder in the past (click1, click2 (it feels insane that number of LGMs now is almost the same as the number of IGMs when LGMs was added)). Even tourist reached 3000 in 2.5 years when 3000 was insanely high (but he already had a couple of IOI gold medals by the point Codeforces became a thing).
And then there are Chinese guys, that's insane for real. And while Miracle03 performance suggests that they did some CP before registering this account, jiangly's competition history looks genuine. LGM in exactly a year. That's... very impressive.

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    4 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it +73 Vote: I do not like it

    But jiangly outright won Div2 within 3 months of registering, so he must have done quite a lot (around 1.5 years?) of rigorous CP already? and Miracle03 also almost topped two of his first two contests, so both of them must have practiced really really hard even before registering on CF, I think?

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      4 years ago, # ^ |
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      he must have done quite a lot (around 1.5 years?) of rigorous CP already?

      He went from "genuine" Master to LGM in half a year. I don't think that winning Div. 2 would take "around 1.5 years" for someone with such capability for improvement.

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        4 years ago, # ^ |
          Vote: I like it +65 Vote: I do not like it

        Actually jiangly may started CP in the first half of 2018, after High School Affiliated to Southwest University (the high school he is currently attending) confirmed that he could be admitted.

        In NOIP2018 (Nov. 10, 2018) he got an incredible score (for those who studied CP for less than 1 year). And after the province (or may say municipality) selection in Chongqing (Apr. 7, 2019), he has qualified for NOI2019. As you can see, from then on he started training in Codeforces frequently (and so diligent). Eventually he achieved an impressive performance in Codeforces (and became the most promising CPer in China in the next few years. It's a pity that he didn't enter the China IOI team, but he will get a better performance in ICPC, right?)

        Jlytxdy!

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    4 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it +88 Vote: I do not like it

    3 years is normal?

    Normal people will take like 30 years to reach LGM :P(Just kidding).

    It's not like everyone can become LGM. You guys are called "legendary" for a valid reason. Orz

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      4 years ago, # ^ |
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      I started PS in 2008. Hopefully I can be LGM in 2038?

      Thanks a lot. That's motivating.

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    4 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it +42 Vote: I do not like it

    Though was it harder in the past? It's really hard to take into account the exposure competitive programming had in recent years and how the competition has gotten tougher. Although the very term "hardness" is equally ambiguous.

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    4 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it +17 Vote: I do not like it

    You guys probably had some math competition/Olympiad background right?

    In my opinion, the correct metric to measure "time taken" is not just to consider the time when someone registered the first time on CF. Instead one must also consider the time before joining CF, when they did math competitions or coding competitions.

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      4 years ago, # ^ |
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      The best metric to take into account is the date of birth. All other dates are irrelevant. The fastest so far is djq_cpp who took 14 years to become LGM.

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        4 years ago, # ^ |
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        RIP childhood

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          4 years ago, # ^ |
            Vote: I like it +43 Vote: I do not like it

          different people have different concepts of fun if he enjoys doing CP in childhood, then I don't think he RIPped his childhood.. Some like making sand castles and some enjoyed making other castles.

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      4 years ago, # ^ |
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      I reached LGM(2900) after 4 years of CP. When I started CP, I didn’t have any math/olympiad background, but I had Silver rank in League of Legends

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4 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +35 Vote: I do not like it

He's a really cool dude, hope you still wear the Croatian hat :)

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4 years ago, # |
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idk some noob

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4 years ago, # |
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USA now on top of Russia even in CF now,lol,just joking .

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4 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it -19 Vote: I do not like it

He noob

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4 years ago, # |
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It would be really awesome to see Benq coming over here and writing a comment about himself.

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4 years ago, # |
← Rev. 2   Vote: I like it 0 Vote: I do not like it

HeIIoWorId is very Stupid-Bility,I also looked at his submission history and initially he was having trouble in solving 1000 rated problems(like a normal human) and then suddenly his ratings kept on declining until his score became 0.

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