An Evening Off
11.16.06 2:00 AM


By RRLevering
TopCoder Member

It's pretty incredible to me to think that only a day of the competition is over. It's not that I'm not enjoying myself - it's just that with all of the different segments of the day, it feels like several days. However, the last segment was definitely a great break from the competition. The evening activities started with a dinner buffet, Hawaiian style. It was of the high quality I've come to expect from meals here (by the end of my blog posts, I hope it's obvious that I like my eating and drinking).



After eating, the big activity of the evening was the poker tournament, with the grand prize being a set of TopCoder-branded poker chips. Honestly though, I think most people just wanted an extra chance at their competitors, possibly with the tables turned in their favor. It was a popular tournament, with probably more than half of the competitors playing, including many who had never played a tournament before. The big question on my mind was whether algorithmic skill was correlated with poker success at all. I didn't come to any statistically significant conclusions, but the top seeds of the tournament were not in the finals of the poker game.





Early on, mathijs looked good after quickly cleaning out his first table and on a winning streak from some other minor competition that may have happened earlier in the day. However, in a series of big challenges, he quickly lost it all after moving tables. Eventually the five starting tables became one. finrod, from the design competition, looked really good going into the final table, with the most chips and a string of good luck, but very quickly FatSimon took the lead with a couple of large early pots. He seemed quite unstoppable, getting good hand after good hand, and he managed to buy most other players out near the end. Finally, it came down to him and sql_lall, another design competitor. sql_lall didn't look good, with only a couple chips facing his opponent. However, in a string of good hands starting with a running straight and with a couple of aggressive bets (yes, I saw that Jack high bluff), he quickly totally reversed the positions and looked ready to take it all -- when again, fate switched on the table and FatSimon took it all back. All in all, the last showdown was the best part of the tournament and a great way to end it.







During this time, there were also some heated games of fooseball, pool, and air hockey going on. I don't think I ever saw an empty table while I was watching poker. These tables have actually been set up the entire time and serve as a great distraction for people looking to take a break from the intensity of the competition room. I attempted to challenge bmerry after an air hockey winning streak, but alas, he was worried about ruining his arm before his first event tomorrow morning so I didn't get my game. Some people clearly don't have their priorities straight :).



Now off to sleep before another intense day of coding goodness...