Story Time

It's been about a year since I started CP and reached expert pretty fast. However, for some reason or the other couldn't reach CM. I got pretty close multiple times but lost rating as soon as I was one contest away. It felt like I was collecting every 18xx rating lmao.

At least in the beginning, the reason I wasn't CM was, well, I genuinely wasn't at that level yet. However, towards the end of the year, I felt like I was of that strength, but for some reason couldn't convert that into the rating jump I needed. I think some of you would be able to relate to this, you feel stronger than your current rating, but can't reach there, and maybe there's something holding you back psychologically.

Beating Psychological Pressure During a Contest

I tried to do something different in the last 2 contests I wrote to deal with pressure. Firstly, I stopped checking my standings, both common and friends' standings. I used to check this very regularly in previous contests. My brain would go like this:

Ughhh can't get any idea about D, let's see the solve count. Oh wow it's pretty high it must be something obvious I'm missing. Let's see which of my friends have solved it. Oh 1 guy solved it, interesting. Let me continue thinking... (15 minutes later) Ok I give up but the solve count is even more now, wait this friend also solved it even though she's rated below me, umm what am I missing :( Ok let's check using Carrot how much rating I'm losing as of now, crap I really need to solve D to save my rating

... Why, just why? Clearly this is not useful. Firstly, in order to solve a hard problem, you need calm thinking without distractions. I'm not saying to not take breaks, sometimes taking a walk for 5 minutes could be useful to refresh yourself. But by seeing who all solved the question was just creating more pressure for me. Secondly, with the state of AI and LLMs today, the solve count might be very inflated. In the near future if not now, solve counts during contests might be just an indicator of how easy the problem is for AI, and not the true difficulty of the problem. I went one step further and literally covered the solve count with my right hand during the contest whenever I returned to the problems page so as not to get spooked by it (yes I know I could have just used a mirror website but not as comfortable with the interface lol).

But isn't it good to see how good you're doing, and if a problem further on is actually easier? Sure, C vs B and E vs D sorta difficulty swaps are common enough. But why do these exist in the first place? Difficulty is relative. Infact for Good Bye 2025, I got the idea for E instantly, but it took me a long time to get the idea for D, even though E was harder for most people. I think it's better to just read the next problem if you're stuck for a while, and developing this skill could be useful in general, especially in contests like ICPC where problems aren't arranged in difficulty order. Recognizing difficulty is a skill in itself, and I would argue it's best to look at problems without any bias. Maybe you get the idea for a "harder" problem quickly, and you wouldn't have tried that with your best if you saw the solve count.

If you're not psyched by how others are doing, and are actually motivated by it during a contest, yeah, this advice isn't really relevant for you. But I think a lot of people would relate with my sentiment, no matter what your rating is.

More Story Time

I had a goal of reaching CM by the end of the year. However, I was pretty far away before Good Bye 2025, not even in the 1800s so I pretty much gave up on it after getting close so many times. However, after 2 great contests without the pressure of reaching CM, I thought I could actually get close. My rating was 1891 after the last contest of the year, so I thought "oh well, didn't actually get there but found a way to remove pressure, nice". But after the rollback today, I reached a rating of exactly 1900 :D (did I hit my goal or not is up to technicality, but I count it, it feels so clutch). Also feels like a belated birthday present hehe, as mine was yesterday.

Fun fact is that my ICPC team name is literally "cantreachCM" as all 3 of us had a peak rating of around 1850 while registering. We had our regionals on 3rd Jan so we were joking it's actually bad luck to reach CM before that, and I thought I didn't lol (or I technically did? idk)

Some Final Pep Talk

I actually think I'm still not at the level to be a stable CM, but that's okay, I'm gonna keep practicing to get better anyways. All of us improve at different rates, could be because of different exposure to DSA, coding, math olympiads for example. It's best not to compare and focus just on yourself. Learn from the community and help each other improve yes, but understand that there's no deadline to getting good, and it's okay if your rating doesn't improve or even goes down.

Let's not lie, it's especially hard to increase rating now with the number of cheaters. Even without cheating, rating might not show your true skill. It's just a metric of how well you do in rated contests compared to other humans (and a few robots). With enough time and effort, you will get better at cp, regardless of if your rating reflects that. Trust the process, and have fun solving problems and learning new things. That's enough :)