Final results for all the "Finals," finally!
05.05.06 9:00 PM

By dplass
TopCoder Member

First, some old business. The results from the third round of the CDDC Appeals (the "Finals") are in. The winners for design (for the DataView Decorator) were:

Handle

Pops

kyky

adic

And for development, for the Bread Crumb Trail:

Handle

sindu

colau

biotrail

The winners, Take 1

Before the Algorithm System Test results were in, Mike Lydon from TopCoder came out to line up the Component Development finalists, and to announce the winner. But, the scoreboard was showing the Design finalists instead of the Development Finalists. When this was pointed out, he ran backstage, then back out again, and said there was a problem with the scoreboard, and that they would try to take a few mintues to fix it. "Someone" shouted "Is there an engineer in the house?" Sadly, this did not have its intended uproarious effect. Oh well.

After a while, Mike came back out with the microphone and the results.

Once more, with feeling

In development, the final placements were:

Handle

Overall, taking their wagers into account, the Final CDDC design order was:

Handle

This means that Pops and sindu are the TopCoder Open 2006 Design and Development champions! When he found out, he was on the phone with his wife Stephanie -- who "didn't say anything, she was just screaming."

Pops told me during the afternoon "Next Generation" session that didn't know if he'd be able to pull it off, and felt that had he known he had done so well on his second component, he would definitely had wagered differently. In the end, the wagers really did make a difference for the final design placements. If Pops had wagered more evenly over all 3 components, and second-place design finalist nicka81 had put a larger wager into his first-place win in the Relation component, the outcome might've been different.

Today, I had the pleasure of meeting sindu, when he came up to me and introduced himself (he was the first one to say that he didn't recognize me from my profile picture!) I hadn't met him previously this week, so I'm glad I got a chance to meet him before the finalists were announced. He was shocked that he had won, since he had never done a ASP.NET component before! The same thing with regard to the wagering happened in development as design -- if the wagering had been different, it's possible that second-place development finalist visualage might've pulled out a victory.

I actually wrote much of this blog entry (except for the algorithms) during the time that Mike Lydon was backstage. I predicted Pops and sindu had won, merely based on their three scores.

Algorithms

After an exciting coding and challenge phase, Petr emerged as the TCO 2006 Algorithms Champion. (I could say "I told ya so", but since I hadn't predicted it, I can't.) Check out Kawigi's blog for the gory details on the round itself. At the Press Conference, Jim McKeown for TopCoder asked the newly named champion "Did you ever imaging winning the TCO? (Well, of course you did!) What was the criticial decision that you made to lead you to victory?" Petr's simple, direct, and correct answer was, "Code the correct solution to the hard problem!" Indeed, this was one of the deciding factors in his victory over tomek -- getting the 1000-point problem correct.

Congratulations to all the winners!!!

Wrap-up and Administrivia

After the winners were announced, there was a "Media Hour" (really, a "Media 15-minutes") during which each champion was interviewed and the local, and some national, media were able to participate as well.

In case you were wondering what I look like while I write, Pops took this picture of me:

Judging from my completely receeded hairline, I'd say it's time for a new member photo! If anybody wants to be in touch other than in the forums and arena, you can email me at my handle at yahoo.com.

I'd like to thank all the TopCoder staff for all their hard work, help and support this week; there are too many here to mention, but I would be remiss to not name Jessie, Tricia, Kevin, Mess, Faxman, dok, and of course

Nick... Nick... Nick...

"Thank yous" also go out to all those who gave feedback in person and on the forums, to both me and my fellow bloggers: in alphabetical order, davidyang, omgrace, and Kawigi. Blogging the TCO, and reading the blogs, really enhances the whole TopCoder experience, whether algorithms, design, development, or the cultural aspects of the event.

If y'all can't tell, I had an absolute blast both experiencing and blogging the event that is the TopCoder Open. I said to my wife Sue (only about 12 more hours baby!) that this was the opportunity of a lifetime, to which she said "Hopefully not!" Yeah! That's the spirit! Hopefully I'll see you all next year as a competitor in the TCO 2007, wherever (and whenever) that may be!

As they say, "Good luck in the arena"
--dplass

P.S. Even though I won't be eligible, you can be sure I'll be following the TopCoder Collegiate Challenge in November 2006 in sunny San Diego California. See you there!