Build reputation and skills through our Experience Challenges. Marathon Matches (MMs) are one of the most effective ways to up your programming skills, gain rank, and earn bragging rights, while Single Round Matches (SRMs) are designed to add depth to your knowledge with diversity in programming disciplines.
Marathon Matches (MMs) are complex competitive programming problems that can last a week or more. MMs are algorithm or data science problems that can have several solutions. Scores are based on the best solution for the problem. Marathon Matches are the cornerstone of competition. They help to sharpen mental endurance because the problems can last weeks!
Single Round Matches (SRMs) are timed competitive programming algorithm matches. All competitors are given the same three problems to solve under the same time constraints—a 90 minute round and a 15 minute challenge round. They are geared to push competitors to think under pressure, while sharping their skills and confidence.
Pick the challenges that are best for you. Are up for long endurance MMs or ready to feel the thrilling pressure of SRMs?
Competition duration and code length are much longer for MMs (1-2 weeks with 5,000 lines of code) compared to SRMs (1.5 hours of 20-300 lines).
SRMs aim to produce the best possible solutions to a problem, while with MMs, there are no exact solutions and many code optimizations can be done.
“Like anything worth doing in life, you learn new skills and techniques. For me, probably the most interesting part of competing in MMs is meeting new people from across the world and learning from them. Plus, you also get to compare yourself to these great people and see how good you are. Another great thing is the research involved. To see your algorithm perform well is very rewarding. You get to learn from each result while optimizing your solutions. And of course if you’re really goot, you can become the TCO champion. That’s definitely something to aim for.”
“I was equipped with some new tips and tricks of being a judge, had brushed up on my javascript, jquery, and certain other libraries and decided to enter the battlegrounds yet again. Right off the bat, I managed to win a really interesting challenge called, “Create UI using Bootstrap”, and suddenly I found my name as “Topcoder Member of the Month” for March, and managed to get the “Rookie of the Year” at my work. So many things in such a short time, I was already flying in the cloud. But little did I know that I was still just starting out. At the beginning of March I had 5 wins with $2,400 won. And now, in only 5 more months I am over $20,000 won, with 33 total wins and 26 first place wins.”
“I made a lot of improvements. I made a 40k improvement. I’m not only looking at my final scores, but I’m also looking at test cases to see what works and what doesn’t. I don’t like to be distracted when I’m competing. There are so many problems to solve, but that is the fun part. I want my solutions to be the one that matters most.”
Why will this make me a better programmer? It is kind of hard to explain why this works so well. I think one of the major reasons is because we are challenged to solve much more difficult problems than what we usually solve in our day jobs. When you start solving those problems, the easier problems you encounter on a day-to-day basis seem to get a lot easier. One thing that really helped me was the ability to see other people’s solutions to the problem. When I would finish coding my problem, and look at the other solutions to the problem, I would always find new ways of using some of the base language or library features that had never occurred to me. When you try to challenge someone else’s problem, you are forced to read some code that can be very obscure and quickly understand it.”
| competition | rank | provisional score | final score | rating | Volatility | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Marathon Match 127 – CarRacing ROUND | 54 | 9.42 | 9.83 | 866 | 185 |
competitionMarathon Match 127 – CarRacing ROUNDrank54provisional score9.42final score9.83rating866Volatility185 |
| Marathon Match 95 | 60 | 118939.39 | 117545.45 | 901 | 189 |
competitionMarathon Match 95rank60provisional score118939.39final score117545.45rating901Volatility189 |
| Poland Lightning Round | 64 | 286516.85 | 290067.42 | 920 | 205 |
competitionPoland Lightning Roundrank64provisional score286516.85final score290067.42rating920Volatility205 |
| Round 2 | 129 | 326153.10 | 309671.56 | 918 | 228 |
competitionRound 2rank129provisional score326153.10final score309671.56rating918Volatility228 |
| Round 1 | 98 | 267639.57 | 279294.01 | 930 | 252 |
competitionRound 1rank98provisional score267639.57final score279294.01rating930Volatility252 |
| Marathon Match 87 | 38 | 865772.45 | 858734.24 | 923 | 280 |
competitionMarathon Match 87rank38provisional score865772.45final score858734.24rating923Volatility280 |
| AlleleClassifier | 127 | 388150.27 | 376146.59 | 872 | 289 |
competitionAlleleClassifierrank127provisional score388150.27final score376146.59rating872Volatility289 |
| 2013 TCO Marathon Round 3 | 223 | 290516.26 | 306264.15 | 928 | 294 |
competition2013 TCO Marathon Round 3rank223provisional score290516.26final score306264.15rating928Volatility294 |
| 2013 TCO Marathon Round 2 | 223 | 57.44 | 1145.26 | 961 | 318 |
competition2013 TCO Marathon Round 2rank223provisional score57.44final score1145.26rating961Volatility318 |
| 2013 TCO Marathon Round 1 | 139 | 735944.87 | 735598.13 | 1055 | 281 |
competition2013 TCO Marathon Round 1rank139provisional score735944.87final score735598.13rating1055Volatility281 |
