ICPC WF 2019 Porto, Part 1

Unlike my usual blogpost, I'll try to write this one in English. Since this WF is my last ICPC contest (2nd time at WF), I just want to write this story not in usual way :P

Before WF

You can skip this one if you want to, this one is not about the 6+1 days in WF :P

My team, Supir Tayo which consist of me (ayaze), Degol (DigiM), and Inigo (IgoRamli) qualified to WF 2019 by winning Hanoi regional 2018. Unlike previous seasons where we usually wait for announcement in CJ Hwang's blog whether UI will qualify to WF or not, this time we are 100% sure that we will qualify to WF because we won in a regional (1st time for UI to win a regional). Hence, we can plan our training in advance. Also, I believe that getting visa for Portugal should be easier than US, hopefully Inigo and Degol can get it with no trouble (I'm still traumatized with my attempts to get US visa).

Anyway, I think I'll just write how this team was formed. Basically, I was just exercising my power to pick my teammate for this season as coach assistant (this sentence seems so wrong). For picking my teammate, I have 2 main criteria:

• We should be able to get along easily. I hate it when I have to argue over stupid things a lot with my teammate (happened before)
• They should be able to cover stuff I am weak at or hate (such as geometry, lol)

If I remembered correctly this team was formed second, with the first was JatengPride since they have great performance during CompFest X final. I picked Degol and Inigo, because:

• I know Degol quite well, since we have worked together for some stuff. At least I know we won't have trouble cooperating with each other. He is also good at greedy (which I am rather weak at) and can do geometry (which I truly hate). He can also code tedious stuff, although it quite some time
• I kinda know Inigo a bit since OSN and Pelatnas. Although he was disqualified from the 1st stage of national training camp for some reason (it's very stupid reason in my opinion, which also why I rather don't want to take part in training camp again if possible), I belief he has a lot of potential, which is bad if wasted. So I took him in, planning to have him trained a bit under me. Beside, having a "random variable" in team like this seems interesting. He also seems nice and humble, so at least we won't argue a lot. Though lately it seems he became more rude at me, maybe just because we are getting friendlier :P

Before regionals, We usually trained weekly in Ristek using CF gyms. Unlike previous year, I decided to add "contest review" post-contest, where we talked a bit about our performance in that contest, what went wrong, what went good, how to prevent those wrongs etc. I think it's better to reflect on those stuff to learn better about ourselves and to improve. Anyway, we managed to get a good rank in Jakarta (5th place) and scored a win in Hanoi (champion), which is a very good feat I think.

Now comes trouble for training pre-WF:

• I'm having research internship at TU Dresden, Germany for this semester. We won't be able to train at the same place
• Degol almost have an exchange in uni in Singapore or Tokyo, although this was cancelled. He's in 6th semester though; I figured it will be hard for him to train

Anyway, we decided to do weekly training every sunday at 12:00 or 13:00 GMT+7 (6:00 or 07:00 at Dresden). For communication we primarily used LINE chat, to write observations or letting the other side know that we are currently coding. Didn't use video call since my internet is rather shitty. The training itself is like usual, I think now we're used to it. Maybe I'll just tell my biggest dilemma for training at that time:

• If I have breakfast (suppose I have time to prepare), I'll be too sleepy to think
• If I don't have breakfast, around the 3rd of 4th hour I'll be too hungry to think

In the end, usually I don't have breakfast, and around the 4th hour I'll just prepare simple food to eat while Degol or Inigo are solving problems.

Beside team training, we also prepared our Team Reference Document (TRD). Our usual TRD which was based on Sukar Ditaklukkan's TRD was written in docs. Since I found a good TRD generator from C++ and LaTeX, I decided to make a repo to make our TRD instead. Though since all of us are rather busy, not much was added to the TRD. Our TRD can be accessed here, use at your own risk.

Now this is my personal issue. Personally, I always believed that I am weaker than myself from few years ago. Also, I think in terms of knowledge, the youngsters right now know a lot more than me. For example I don't understand exotic DP such as Slope trick, Aliens trick, or some other algorithms. Yet, I am not really interested to learn those stuff (this is not good actually). Anyway, I decided that if I don't understand those stuffs, I'll fight by polishing whatever I have to its finest.

For closing of this part, my goal in this WF is quite simple: to have fun, perform better than in my last WF in 2017 (raw rank 45th, official joint-34th), and to not have any regrets. I hope I won't be stuck at one problem again like last time :s

Now here goes the real part of adventure in WF!

Day -1 - Before Departure

Spent the entire day doing stuffs so I can relax when I'm back from Porto, i.e doing laundry, grocery, etc. Degol forgot to reply whether he will bring the Tayo doll or not, so I think I'll bring the red panda doll I bought last week in Leipzig zoo, for mascot in case he didn't bring Tayo doll. Why red panda? Probably because of the influence of "Rising of the Raccoon Best Girl", but now I think red panda, raccoon or similar animals are cute. Anyway, packing was rather quick, simply throwing everything I want to bring for the next few days. Didn't bring any thick jackets, since last time I checked Porto's temperature is at least 2 digits (10 celcius is still OK, but 9 is nope for me). Luckily I still have some space in case I want to buy several souvenirs.

My red panda doll

Around 16:00 here, I think Pak Denny, Degol, and Inigo already board their plane. Probably their departure time is similiar with mine several months ago. Oh well, finally gonna meet them in Frankfurt tomorrow. At least for the first time in several months I have to wake up early in sunday morning not for team training, yay.

Gotta sleep soon, yet my body rhythm just won't let me ~_~ Hopefully I can wake up in time tomorrow to catch up the train to the airport.

Day 0 - Departure

Woke up in time to catch the train to the airport. Still so early in the morning, not many people there both in the train and the airport. It's funny that while there is only 1 person in the baggage check (me), there are around 10 airport employee standing at the baggage check xD Anyway, I didn't know that Dresden airport is quite big (around 12 gates), when I arrived several months ago I thought that the airport is small. Still 2 hours before boarding, so I kill some time by reading light novel and watching Youtube. Around the time I was going to board the plane, it seems the rest of the team already arrived at Frankfurt. And Degol said he brought the Tayo doll, don't know whether my red panda doll will be a waste or not.

After arriving at Frankfurt, I met up with them at the gaming station. Before I forgot, there are 5 participant from UI, they are Pak Denny as coach, Me, Degol, Inigo as contestant, and Bu Citra (Pak Denny's wife) as guest. After that, we decided to get something to eat, with Pak Denny very eager to eat sausage (the conversation back then, when taken out of context, is very weird). However, first we bought breads from bakery, since the halal-ness of sausage here is.. yeah. When we were eating, suddenly we came across NUS team (Steven Halim & Suhendry). After that, since Pak Denny still wanted to eat sausage, we split up, and I was left with Degol, chatting about stuff at Fasilkom and some anime/manga stuff.

After a series of time killing attempt, finally it's time to board the plane. It's taking quite some time until we can board the plane. My seat was located far from all of them (well, I don't know their seat and I just picked random seat in the morning). When I checked the ticket, it seems that the flight is around 1.5 hours (13:45 - 15:25). Fast enough. Right after I sat on my seat, I immediately tried to sleep. Then, I remembered.

Isn't Frankfurt-Porto is at least as long as Balikpapan-Jakarta?

Isn't Porto's timezone different with Frankfurt?

Then I realized that the flight is actually 2.5 hours. I feel betrayed.

After arriving in Porto, we took our luggage into ICPC volunteer place. After Pak Denny take care of several stuff, we took photo with the ICPC banner. Then, Pak Denny and Inigo went to buy SIM card to use in Porto. Oh, btw it's the first time I can use mobile data in foreign ICPC, and it's only because Vodafone can be used here as well xD Usually I never bother about mobile data in ICPC.

Ready for WF!
Source: Pak Denny

While waiting for the shuttle bus, we checked places that we can see today. I'm not really sure about where to visit, so after a while, only Inigo, Pak Denny, and Bu Citra who checked places around Porto. The bus finally arrived. Along the road, Inigo said that he saw something that may surprise me. When I asked what, he said night club. Considering that in front of Dresden hbf there are night club and inside hbf there are betting place.. I am not really surprised with that stuff anymore :P Well, the sad part of growing up is you become less and less surprised with something.

There are some hotels reserved for ICPC contestants, I think there are > 5 hotels. Our hotel is HF Tuela Porto. I shared room with Degol, Pak Denny with Bu Citra, while Inigo is alone. Another sad thing is while my room is beside Pak Denny's room, Inigo's room is in different floor. The room is nice; at least there is big TV so I can play Switch in big screen :P After putting our luggage and setting up gaming station, we went to hotel Porto Palacio to get dinner.

The dinner is good, at least I liked the fish and the dessert. At first glance, the orange pie looks like kue lapis or bolu in Indonesia. But damn, this stuff is REALLY GOOD. The cheesecake is also good, though everyone else but me agreed that cheesecake in Frankfurt is better. Also, it seems that sparkling water is called "water with gas" here, which is quite funny when we think about it.

bridge-which-i-dont-know-what-its-name-is

View near the bridge

After that, we decided to take a walk around. We go near a bridge-which-i-dont-know-what-its-name-is, taking shortcut here and there . After that we walked near the river until we reach the rail museum. The trip back to the hotel was rather tiring; I don't remember we go down that much, but the trip back was like 90% uphill, and yeah it was tiring. After we got to the hotel, I spent around 30 mins - 1 hour playing Switch, until I finally decided to sleep.