Match Editorial

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Room One today saw the usual quick start by most of the room on the Level One problem. ZorbaTHut, SnapDragon, Yarin, dgarthur, malpt, and DjinnKahn opened the Level One within seconds of the round's start. John Dethridge and reid started late, both opening at approximately the three-minute mark. venco broke with tradition and opened the Level Three first.

First submission went to Yarin, turning in his Level One in a little over nine minutes for 317.70 points. Yarin was quickly followed by SnapDragon, then ZorbaTHut, the last earning 314.79 points. As usual, the late starts messed things up a little. Despite submitting a minute and a half later, John Dethridge got the fastest submission in the room, earning 325.37 points for slightly under eight minutes of work, reid spending only twenty seconds more for 323.70 points. Curiously enough, while almost all the programmers finished in less than ten and a half minutes of work, malpt, dgarthur, and DjinnKahn spent over thirteen and a half minutes each, yet came within twenty seconds of each other, earning under 290 points. Each coder proceeded to the Level Two except John Dethridge, who skipped ahead to the Level Three.

And speaking of the Level Three, venco finished up his Level Three submission after only 21:39, earning 750.13 points then dropping back to start the Level One. John Dethridge finished his Level Three before any coder finished the grueling Level Two problem, 768.56 points on 20 minutes of work, and dropped to the Level Two after a short break.

First submission on the Level Two came from Yarin as well, spending 22:43 for 299.21 points, but once again his score was beaten by a late started. reid took the high score on the Level Two, barely more than 19 minutes of work yielding 325.62 points. Most of the coders finished less than 30 minutes after starting, DjinnKahn coming within 30 seconds of the border, earning from 289 points to 259 points on the low end. dgarthur apparently ran into some trouble, taking more than ten minutes longer than DjinnKahn, only earning 218.17 points. Each coder proceeded on to the Level Three.

reid was the first to complete the problem set, spending under 16 minutes on the Level Three, getting 861.66 points for his solution. SnapDragon finished second, needing 17:38 for 825.82 points. DjinnKahn spent pver 22 minutes for 737.13 points and was quickly topped by dgarthur's 883.14 point solution, coded in under 15 minutes. malpt took 28 minutes, submitting 4 minutes before the end of the match for 650.12 points, followed by ZorbaTHut's solution, ten minutes longer and 110 points weaker. venco, meanwhile, finished up his Level Two solution, only earning 221.86 points on it. Yarin was the only one to not submit all three problems.

After coding phase, reid had a clear lead with 1510.98 points, SnapDragon falling behind by almost 100 points, followed rapidly by dgarthur and John Dethridge, either of them in a position to take 2nd place by a single challenge. ZorbaTHut took the lowest place among the coders who had completed the set, Yarin taking last overall.

Challenge phase would bring its set of changes, though. venco rapidly challenged dgarthur's Level One solution, pushing him two places up - one place from dgarthur's fall, and one place for passing DjinnKahn, who was literally a single point ahead beforehand. Unfortunately for dgarthur, his Level Two was flawed as well, which Yarin used to increase his score. Unfortunately for Yarin, dgarthur's Level Three alone was worth more than both of Yarin's submissions, even with the challenge included.

An unusually interesting challenge round was followed by unusually damaging system tests. Four problems failed overall. dgarthur's Level Three turned out to be flawed as well, dropping dgarthur to a devastating zero total points. malpt's Level Three had a bug, known to malpt even before challenge phase, as he admitted afterwards. ZorbaTHut and DjinnKahn both lost their Level Two submissions as well.

reid, on the other hand, kept all his submissions, gaining 89 rating points to become the third coder to break 3000. SnapDragon's submissions survived as well, propelling him to within 12 points of the 3000 barrier. John Dethridge took third, increasing his rating to 2905, while venco's rating increased 94 points, the most in the room. venco's final score of 1333.20, including his challenge, would have been sufficient to easily win any other room.

DjinnKahn only finished with 1024.95 points, and while his final score was beaten by radeye in room 2, he would have won any room from 3rd on. His rating increased by 86. ZorbaTHut's near-first and near-3000 dropped by 15 points, still well within reach of 3000, though not within reach of reid. Yarin lost 20 points, and malpt 29. dgarthur, not surprisingly, lost his maximum in one round, a painful 191 rating points.