A NWERC week

The 2nd Universal Cup Stage 22: Hangzhou was the only event of last week (problems, results, top 5 on the left, analysis). Team USA1 has returned to the winning ways after a short slump in form, already leading on 12 problems but still finishing everything with an hour to spare. Congratulations!

Team "nwerc is bad" from the Univerity of Oxford also reminded that they are one of the favorites for one of the upcoming World Finals in Luxor by earning an excellent fourth place and being the best ICPC-active team this time. Well done!

Thanks for reading, and check back next week for more meaningful content :)

A Delft week

The 2nd Universal Cup. Stage 21: Delft was the main event of last week (problems, results, top 5 on the left, analysis). Team HoMaMaOvO won the round and continued closing the gap in the overall standings, which is now down to a mere 0.16 points. Winning one more stage (their 9th of the season) would be enough for them to overtake USA1, since it would bring at least 1/4*(3/4)**8*(200-175)~=0.62 points.

As both teams solved everything this time, the key advantage for HoMaMaOvO seems to have come from solving a tricky geometry problem B (and one can't complain that tricky geometry problems were unexpected) very fast from the first attempt. Well done!

Thanks for the (quick) reading, and check back next week.