Room 2 - dmwright...dominates!
Stanford junior makes 2nd consecutive finals appearance.

Friday, April 19, 2002
By Adam Loss,TopCoder Staff Writer

A late arriving Los Angeles-esque crowd gathered to witness the 11am round of the 2002 Sun Microsystems and TopCoder Collegiate Challenge. Perhaps it was the smell of the lunch that was being set up that brought the spectators, but more likely it was to watch TopCoder tournament veteran dmwright strut his stuff. The junior from Stanford University, who is TopCoder's only member to make it to the semifinals of their first three major tournaments, didn't disappoint those who attended, as he advanced to his second consecutive final by submitting code for all three problems and 1114.91 final points.

"I'm not nervous at all," said dmwright, when asked about returning for his second consecutive appearance in a TopCoder major tournament final. "I'll just treat it like a Single Round Match, and block everyone else around me out."

2001 TopCoder Invitational semifinalists Logan and ColinMacLeod finished second and third with 566.59 and 260.51 final points, respectively, while bigg_nate had a rough time in his first semifinals appearance, and finished with -50.

Logan threw the first curve into the match, as he attacked the hard Level Three problem, while everyone else chose the easier Level One problem. dmwright finished the problem first and earned 214.73 points. bigg_nate finished minutes later, and earned 207.89 points. Meanwhile, ColinMacLeod and Logan were struggling, losing time and valuable points as they pressed to complete their respective codes, but it just wasn't meant to be. Logan ended up leaving the Level Three problem, and opened the Level One problem, which he submitted for 222.34 points. "I figured if I could submit the Level Three problem in a decent amount of time, I might have enough points to beat out the guys who went after the Level One problem first," remarked Logan. "I just couldn't figure it out, and had to move on." ColinMacLeod stopped compiling code for the Level One problem, and went after the Level Two problem, for which he ended up earning 310.51 points. "I didn't think I could code a solution that would run in the allotted amount of time (under eight second)," said ColinMacLeod, when asked about why he decided to move on.

dmwright ended up earning 397.86 points on his Level Two submission, and was the only coder in the room to finish the Level Three problem, gaining 502.32.

After the "Coding Phase", dmwright led the way with 1114.91 points, far ahead of second place Logan (566.59), third place bigg_nate (475.61), and fourth place ColinMacLeod (310.51).

While the 548.32-point lead for dmwright may have seemed insurmountable to onlookers, Logan, bigg_nate, and ColinMacLeod all knew that there was a "Challenge Phase" ahead, and that they would have their opportunity to prove if the high point total of dmwright was warranted. To their disappointment, however, all three guys were unable to break any of the code submitted by dmwright, and he remained far ahead entering the "System Test Phase". The only action in the "Challenge Phase" was unsuccessful challenges by bigg_nate and ColinMacLeod on each other's Level Two submissions. Those ill fated attempts cost each coder 50 points.

dmwright, all three submissions, Logan, his Level One and Two, and ColinMacLeod, his Level Two, all passed through the system test unscathed. bigg_nate, however, wasn't as fortunate, as his Level One and Two submissions both failed.