All You Need is Randomly Guessing — How to Improve at Codeforces

Revision en1, by Zhtluo, 2024-03-08 03:29:52

I hope my previous blog has convinced you that the best way to improve at Codeforces is to be more Russian, i.e. to improve your math capability. Unfortunately, humble mortals such as you and I are not gifted with the talent that esteemed Russian grandmasters such as 74TrAkToR had:

Surely, it is beneficial to have a code reference for many algorithms and data structures, but I also think that just superficially knowing the algorithm and maybe having implemented it once or twice before is sufficient to use it without a reference?

--- Some Codeforces grandmaster

Therefore, in this blog I will explore an alternative technique — randomly guessing — that is looked down by everyone I know. However, it has been very helpful to me, and I hope that it serves you well, too.

Example

1

Tags tutorial, guessing

History

 
 
 
 
Revisions
 
 
  Rev. Lang. By When Δ Comment
en6 English Zhtluo 2024-03-28 19:42:26 2 Tiny change: 'is less then $|H|(1 −' -> 'is less than $|H|(1 −'
en5 English Zhtluo 2024-03-12 00:26:48 1916
en4 English Zhtluo 2024-03-08 19:58:49 588 Tiny change: 'to improve. Maybe go' -> 'to improve in my opinion. Maybe go'
en3 English Zhtluo 2024-03-08 12:39:11 8451 (published)
en2 English Zhtluo 2024-03-08 11:01:50 7906
en1 English Zhtluo 2024-03-08 03:29:52 983 Initial revision (saved to drafts)