One of the most important all-Russia (it's even greater! It's all-region) sport programming contests has approached us. Of course, I mean the ACM-ICPC NEERC 2010/11 World Programming Championship semi-finals. The names of those who will go to the jewel of Egypt, Sharm el-Sheikh will be known in less than a week. Undoubtedly, for some people this contest will become "the flop of 2010". I hope not to become one of them.

As you already know, the Saratov university delegation is going to get on the train tomorrow with some special extra luggage - we are taking about 300 T-shirts with us. Today we spent half a day sorting them into boxes, signing and counting them again. I even managed do divide 68 by 2 incorrectly that nearely led to the shortage of T-shirts :) However all the hardships are over, the presents are packed and we are ready to go. Let me remind you that all the official team members will receive Codeforces T-shirts (unfortunately, the reservists, coaches and the team leaders do not count).

The previous year in St. Petersburg was marked by our hasty visits to all the nearby pharmacies, it was marked by the fact that on the eve of the contest every team had a member with the fever of 38 degrees celsius, it was marked by the fact that one can never have enough paracetamol before the contest. We don't wish anybody to share this wonderful experience, so dress warm, take care of yourselves and of your teams' health!

Have a good journey and see you in St. Petersburg,
МikeMirzayanov

Hi everyone.

The today's contest is presented by us: cerealguy and yaro. We used to study in school together and Volodya studied there with us. So he will be the contest's hero: Volodya is going to cook in a kitchen, visit a museum, try to crack a safe, travel to an unusual city and even use his magical abilities.

We are grateful to the Codeforces team and especially to Artem Rakhov who helped us to prepare the contest and wrote alternative solutions.

We hope problems will suit your taste.

Good luck!

Update: Solutions

This year the ACM-ICPC regional contest of our region celebrates its 15th anniversary! We heartily congratulate the organizers, members of the jury and the technical committee. We would like to give our special congratulations to the Competition Director Vladimir G. Parfenov. Thank you very much for your work not only in organizing this competition, but also in developing the programming community throughout our region. Much has been done over 15 years. All the achievements of our region teams on the ACM-ICPC finals are also due to you. I have to say that NEERC is organized on the top level and has highly interesting sets of problems which all the participants find very exciting. We wish you new successes and new achievements!

This year the Saratov university delegation does not arrive in St. Petersburg empty-handed. We've decided to give presents to all participants. Each St. Petersburg NEERC participant will receive a Codeforces T-shirt. For us, delivering so many T-shirts will help to clarify who among our team members is the strongest programmer:)

The Codeforces team and Saratov University.

School Team Contest #3 (Winter Computer School 2010/11) will be held on November 13 at 11:00 (UTC). This is the final team event of the series, and we will be glad to see both permanent participants and new teams.

The contest has been prepared by me, Artem Rakhov, Nikolay Kuznetsov and Ivan Fefer. All of us will soon go the ACM-ICPC regionals in St. Petersburg, and now the guys have to combine the preparations for the semifinals with writing problems for you. Special thanks for the translation of problems to Maria Belova.

Everyone can take part in it out of the competition (informal). Make up your mind :)

We decided to sum up contest results using the ITMO rating system, according to which team gets a score from 0 to 200 per contest. It will be used two best participations out of thee possible. I will not reveal secrets, saying that Gennady Korotkevich showed great results and secured the victory ahead of schedule!

Good luck in the upcoming competition, MikeMirzayanov and stern, but fair jury.

UPD. Statements in PDF: russian version and english version. The statements will be available when the contest starts. 

Good day to everybody!

Good day!

We are pleased to inform you that on the night of December 31, 2010 on January 1, 2011 will be not only fireworks, champagne, gifts and presents, but we will summarize the Codeforces year. Great news that Thomas Cormen gave permission to use his name in Codeforces annual award. So, we are pleased to announce the annual Codeforces award — the Cormen Medal!

It will be three awards this year:

• the best Codeforces participant
• the best secondary school Codeforces participant (based on Winter Programming School Olympiads for Schoolchildred results)
• the best problemsetter

The first of the medals will be awarded to participant who will have the highest rating at the end of the year. The second medal will be presented to the best participant of Winter Programming School Olympiads for Schoolchildred 2010/2011. Finally, the third prize will get the most active and successful author of problems for Codeforces competitions (Codeforces team members not considered in the tabulation of results).

Wish you high ratings,,
MikeMirzayanov and Codeforces team

Hello everybody.

I would like to invite you to participate in a new competition, that will be held on the 30th of October at 16:00 MSK. It will be a part of the series of winter programming school olympiads, but it will be only a standart Codeforces round for adult participants.

Teams aren't invited, only single members. The official rules will be ACM-ICPC.
Jury has decided to increase the duration of the competition, which will be 4 hours long.

Attention: People, who are considered out of competition, are participants of Codeforces Round #38, others are participants of School Personal Contest #1. But we will use merged result table for updating rating.

The authors are me, Mike Mirzayanov and Artem Rakhov. Also I'm expressing gratitude to Maria Belova, Max Ivanov and Natalia Bondarenko for help.

P.S. Please, don't forget to register to the competition!