Component Finals, Round 2
11.16.06 6:00 PM


By RRLevering
TopCoder Member

The second round of the component appeals started out with a more surprising point spread in the component results, with several lower ranked TC coders performing very well. On the development side, kiveol had an impressive third place standing, filling in for the gap left by a poor performance by zjq and taking the win on that .NET component. On the design side, both Indemar and oldbam performed better than expected, beating higher colors. However, the leaders of both development and design were very similar to the first component results, making it hard for any wagering upsets in the final results of the contest. Both maone and nicka81 were in a similar position as yesterday, with nicka81 pulling his lead ahead over the course of appeals. In development, magicpig, greatly bolstered by his perfect score by assistant, managed to pull ahead of PE with several successful appeals to both the strict visualage and TheCois.

It's actually a bit sad that even when magicpig took over the lead, no one in the room seemed to react whatsoever. A very common discussion here is how to make the component competition more thrilling within the short time frame that's available for the contest. The last couple of years, several different things have been tried. This year the wagering aspect is the attempt to make the end results a bit more unknown to build suspense. However, if the same person wins all three components, they don't really stand a chance of losing so the suspense isn't really increased. It's a tough thing, because there is a balance between the transparency of the process with the interest of the audience. I personally don't like the current process. I think they especially need to focus more on the unveiling of the original scores, since that is really when the event is decided. And yet, the scores are essentially just plopped up there and no big fuss is made.

So going into the final competition, the top two places in both competitions are going to be hard to change, barring some major variation in the results. It remains to be seen whether maone can finally overtake nicka81 in one of the components and weight it highly enough. Furthermore, the development competition is very open to either magicpig or PE and I look forward to seeing which Chinese student can take the main prize.



I'm also looking forward to how the competition is sensationalized for the AOL webcast, which is being covered behind the scenes by yours truly. Stay tuned - the day still has many fun activities left.