By popular request, Twitch Solves ISL is renewed for a second season which will begin on Friday, 18 November 2022. As in the past, streams will start at 8:00pm Eastern time on Friday nights, and last 1-4 hours depending on how much coffee I drank that morning. I've scheduled 26 episodes for the second season… Continue reading Twitch Solves ISL, Season 2
Author: Evan Chen (陳誼廷)
I am a math olympiad coach and a PhD student at MIT.
Ending Season 1 of Twitch Solves ISL
To all my loyal viewers --- After two years, 480 hours, and 102 episodes of Twitch Solves ISL, I've finally decided that it's time for me to take a hiatus from my weekly Friday night streams. So, episode 102 will be the end of Season 1. To answer the obvious question: I'm definitely open to… Continue reading Ending Season 1 of Twitch Solves ISL
Sometimes the best advice is no advice
信言不美，美言不信。 I get a lot of questions that are so general that there is no useful answer I can give, e.g., "how do I get better at geometry?". What do you want from me? Go do more problems, sheesh. These days, in my instructions for contacting me, I tell people to be as specific as… Continue reading Sometimes the best advice is no advice
OTIS: The RPG
I went and took the idea in I switched to point-based problem sets one step further this year. Now the OTIS-WEB page looks like this: Makes it feel a bit more rewarding to complete problem sets, I think. Also gives me the chance to plant easter eggs everywhere, which is always a lot of fun… Continue reading OTIS: The RPG
Book pitch
This is a pitch for a new text that I'm thinking of writing. I want to post it here to solicit opinions from the general community before investing a lot of time into the actual writing. Summary There are a lot of students who ask me a question isomorphic to: How do I learn to… Continue reading Book pitch
I reserved a Steam Deck!
I might be going too far with this Arch Linux brand loyalty, but I am so psyched I don't care. There's three pieces of hardware that I've always kind of wanted but never been willing to spend money on in isolation: A handheld gaming consoleA laptop with a touch screenA laptop with enough power to… Continue reading I reserved a Steam Deck!
A short dissent on USA eligibility
Sometime this week the American Math Competitions released the following new policy: For the IMO, EGMO, RMM, TSTSTs, and TSTs, and MOP, students must be US citizens or US permanent residents. Visas are not a valid substitute. (AMC Policies) I want to make a rather brief statement on why I was opposed to this change. To… Continue reading A short dissent on USA eligibility
MOP 2021 puzzle hunt
I worked with a few friends on writing a mini one-round puzzle hunt for this year's MOP students. If you want to play, you can do so now at the following URL: https://web.evanchen.cc/mop I'm not sure whether or not this is going to become a recurring tradition. On the one hand, it was loads of… Continue reading MOP 2021 puzzle hunt
Unnecessarily detailed stories of my Mystery Hunt puzzles
As a follow-up to the previous post, I am recording here some details about the (numerous, varied, and deep) revisions that a bunch of my puzzles went through during the production process. These puzzles are in chronological order of when I wrote the puzzle. Spoiler warning: Unlike the last post, these will completely spoil all… Continue reading Unnecessarily detailed stories of my Mystery Hunt puzzles
Some puzzle-writing thoughts from an amateur
The 2021 Mystery Hunt concluded a while ago, and wow, what an experience. I was lucky enough to be on the organizing team, and I am so proud right now to be able to say I am a ✈️✈️✈️ Galactic Trendsetter ✈️✈️✈️. (If you don't know what a puzzle hunt is, betaveros has a great… Continue reading Some puzzle-writing thoughts from an amateur
Power Overwhelming 