).Ok, now's the result. We was 5th. The 1st, 2nd and 4th places belong to the home team, Sharif University. The 3rd is another Iranian team. About the ticket to the world final round. It's being discussed and not yet announced. Usually, there would be 3 tickets here, due to the large number of participated teams. Since each university can get only one, we are the 3rd. So let's hope for it.
Next will be the competition itself. We was almost late, as the university did not send anyone to pick us up and take us to the university as they promised (another trick of theirs). But finally we get a taxi and arrive just in time. Though a bit tired, the team members started perfectly as the solved the 1st problem, problem B (among 10) in 11 minutes and they were among the top teams. Then the big trouble came when the 2nd problem, problem C, was terribly misunderstood and they got 2 wrong submissions for problem C. The team felt nervous and moved to problem A where they made another wrong calculation and got 2 wrong submissions. At the end of the 1st hour, with only 1 problem solved, they were at position 11 and the worst thing is almost all the top teams could solve problem C in 10 minutes by the 1st attempt.
Nevertheless, at the 61th minute, the team suddenly got problem I accepted which brought them back to the 5th place. That made a very funny scene in the contest site as all the other top teams solved problem B and C and got the violet and orange balloons, only this team got the violet and white balloons (each problem solved will be awarded one balloon with corresponding color) and among the top 20 places, our team was the only one who did not get problem C solved. However, soon after that, other top teams got the 3rd problem which again pushed our team to 8th place. The team tried to fix problem A and C but they got another 4 wrong submissions. That's really bad as each wrong submission will cost 20 penalty points and in the final ranking, the team with the same number of problem solved but less penalty points will win). To everyone's surprise, after 1 hour 40 minutes, the team got problem F accepted and come back to the 5th position. I was both happy and unhappy. Definitely the 5th rank is not good enough, however, if they manage to fix the other 2 problems quickly, they can easily take the 1st place, that's what I hoped. However, it was not the case. Other teams start getting the 4th problem but no sooner than 2 hour plus, the team was able to get problem A accepted after 12 submissions!!! That was crazy because 220 points penalty for the wrong submissions essentially means that of all the teams which solve the same number of problems, they would always be at the lowest rank and they will be able to win only by the number of problem solved which is difficult. Soon after that, 3 teams from Sharif got another accepted and the top 3 in the score board were all Sharif University (amazing). The team finally got problem C accepted and earned the 4th place, but not for long as some other teams also get to 5 problems solved after that.
In the last hour, the score board is not updated, and we have to see the result by counting the balloons. 2 teams from Sharif get to 6 solved, while the Taiwan team moved from 3 to 5 in 15 minutes!!! That put us into a terrible situation. The team finally abandoned problem E as they keep getting wrong answer, and tried problem H. Luckily, at the 1st submission (4 hours 30 mins) they got accepted and get another balloon. So now they are at 3rd, after 2 Sharif teams.
At 4 hours 40 minutes, another Iran teams got to 6, the 2 top teams got 7, we were at 4th place which was just enough for us to secure the 3rd ticket to world final. At 4 hours 45 minutes, balloons were no longer awarded and there were at least 6 other teams with 5 problem solved and they were definitely our threat. After 15 mins of waiting, the contest stopped and no one knew what was happened during that amount of time. The final result would only be shown in the closing ceremony at 6pm.
The Taiwan team told us they could solved only 5. So it's a good hope for us. We had a bad lunch (with beef as I told previously), then we stayed there from 3pm to 6pm waiting. Then there came the closing ceremony. All the teams with >= 5 problems solved is awarded. We did count down with hope and tension, start from 12, then 11, 10, 9, 8, 7, still 5 problems, then 6th was the Taiwan team. At that time, we just needed one more place to be not our team, then the 4th place will be ours (with the ticket at 90% sure). But, yes, but again, we were called immediately after the Taiwan team, which means some team could be able to get from 5 to 6 in the last 15 minutes. As you may imagine, we were very sad when going up to get the prize. However, the 4th team was called, which I recognized them as one of the Sharif team (but not the 2 top one), needless to say, it was a true relief.
They took us to the dinner, which, at the 1st glance, I knew it was gonna be the same as the stupid lunch (I really don't understand why they could not order a buffet, just for the closing ceremony). So the Taiwan team and our team decided to go out and eat at a good restaurant. The dinner ended at 1030 and we went back to the hotel.
One thing that was really bugging me is that, the Taiwan team said that they got only 5 problems solved, but the last 2 was submitted during the last hour, how can they emerge to the top place of all the teams with 5 problems. It turned out that they actually solved 6 problems and they cheated us by saying 5, just to make us (embarrassingly) surprised when they came up with higher rank than us. But to their surprise, by submitting at the last moment, they were not able to get better point than us.
I am going out for the city tour, tonight I will be flying back to Singapore. When I am back, I will have more photos to show and stories to tell. Thank you all for supporting us for the last few days.
Perhaps I need to bring a lot of money to pay for the hotel + visa fees (of course I can claim later but don't know when) 