Q: Thoughts on winning?
A: This was my first time getting through the easy problems with a lead. I was fortunate everyone got bogged down in the geometry problems, so I had a head start thinking about the hard ones (although I wasted it trying to solve F). From then on I simply had to keep pace with Tom on the hard problems.
Q: You had a fairly smooth start on the 3 geometry problems, how did this happen?
A: I've been so lost on the geometry so far in the selection rounds that I made a point of learning a few key techniques. For example knowing how to find a circle from three points made A extremely easy. Also the geometry in this contest seemed to involve less edge cases then in the past.
Q: It took you almost an hour between solving D and your next problem, what were you doing during that time?
A: I was drawn by the simplicity of the problem statement for F and wasted half a hour getting nowhere. When Tom solved E in 14 minutes, I realized my mistake and started just following Tom. Also the judge wasn't too happy when I asked for 50mb on the stack for problem E, and it took me some time to realize I could use malloc.
Q: What are your thoughts on the overall problem set?
A: The distribution of difficulty was pretty solid, although I'll always hope for more fun algorithmic with pretty solutions like C and less annoying edge case problems.
Q: How have you been practicing?
A: Most recently SGU, also making a point of solving all of the problems from the selection rounds has been beneficial.
Q: So far nobody has won two selection rounds, why do you think this might be the case?
A: I think the contests have had a varying degree of difficulty that caters to different strengths. For example, I am a slow, inaccurate coder and have done badly on contests with mostly easy problems full of edge cases.
Q: Anything to add?
A: I may have spent the last half hour watching Tom to make sure he didn't start coding F. I also hope to improve at gauging problem difficulty so I don't waste so much time on an impossible problem again.