did usaco open today. tl;dr i threw, around 150 or so total.
i lowk think my contest strategy was at fault today, i started by reading p1 and immediately commited to trying to solve it (bad idea).
anyway i thought of range dp for p1, then spent like half hour implementing and realized i fakesolved it. then i thought a bit harder and got another range dp (what some would call the “naive” dp) which was wrong too (break case was like (a b) (c c) (d e)).
2 or so hours later…
i read p2. get idea for like half solve? almost immediately. start to implement. idea is like dp with 100 extra states per cow.
anyway i figure out most of the details but i get stuck on answer extraction :skull: i think i actually had figured it out but at some point i went to go read p3.
so with 1.5 hours left i read p3 (well i read it like 2 hours in but didnt think seriously enough). anyway i instasolve half of it and impl, it passes with like 20 mins left.
then i figure out the PIE thing in a few mins, and try to impl. but by then it’s too late. if i had like 10 more minutes it’d be fullsolve, maybe? (optimistically)
i think my biggest mistake was committing to p1 so early, and not following my usual strategy of read everything (and think) in first hour. maybe if i read p2p3 earlier i would have like 500 or so…. p1 was so bait tho it looked so easy…
it looks like i wont be camping (351/150/322/~150, surely not campable)…. rip i guess
my usaco net score has gone downward since sophomore year and i didnt qual any olys this year… i guess i really fell off huh…
rip camp 2026 ig maybe i could’ve made it :pensive:
