Here's a section from the H-group Hanabi strategy page: LINES During your turn, part of figuring out the best move involves looking into the future to see what the next player will do. If they discard, will it be okay? Is there some obvious clue that they will do? And so on. As you get… Continue reading Foresight
Category: Problem Solving
2011 N1 = 2024 A2
I am always harping on my students to write solutions well rather than aiming for just mathematically correct, and now I have a pair of problems to illustrate why. Shortlist 2011 N1 Here is Shortlist 2011 N1, proposed by Suhaimi Ramly: For any integer $latex {d > 0}&fg=000000$, let $latex {f(d)}&fg=000000$ be the smallest positive… Continue reading 2011 N1 = 2024 A2
Getting to know problems
I recently had a student writing to me asking for advice on problem-solving. The student gave a few examples of problems they didn’t solve (like I tell people to). One of the things that struck me about the message was their description of their work on USAMO 2021/4, whose statement reads: A finite set $latex… Continue reading Getting to know problems
Hard and soft techniques
In yet another contest-based post, I want to distinguish between two types of thinking: things that could help you solve a problem, and things that could help you understand the problem better. Then I'll talk a little about how you can use the latter. (I've talked about this in my own classes for a while… Continue reading Hard and soft techniques
Math contest platitudes, v3
I think it would be nice if every few years I updated my generic answer to "how do I get better at math contests?". So here is the 2019 version. Unlike previous instances, I'm going to be a little less olympiad-focused than I usually am, since these days I get a lot of people asking… Continue reading Math contest platitudes, v3
Some Thoughts on Olympiad Material Design
(This is a bit of a follow-up to the solution reading post last month. Spoiler warnings: USAMO 2014/6, USAMO 2012/2, TSTST 2016/4, and hints for ELMO 2013/1, IMO 2016/2.) I want to say a little about the process which I use to design my olympiad handouts and classes these days (and thus by extension the… Continue reading Some Thoughts on Olympiad Material Design
On Reading Solutions
(Ed Note: This was earlier posted under the incorrect title "On Designing Olympiad Training". How I managed to mess that up is a long story involving some incompetence with Python scripts, but this is fixed now.) Spoiler warnings: USAMO 2014/1, and hints for Putnam 2014 A4 and B2. You may want to work on these… Continue reading On Reading Solutions
Putnam 2015 Aftermath
(EDIT: These solutions earned me a slot in N1, top 16.) I solved eight problems on the Putnam last Saturday. Here were the solutions I found during the exam, plus my repaired solution to B3 (the solution to B3 I submitted originally had a mistake). Some comments about the test. I thought that the A… Continue reading Putnam 2015 Aftermath
The Mixtilinear Incircle
This blog post corresponds to my newest olympiad handout on mixtilinear incircles. My favorite circle associated to a triangle is the $latex {A}&fg=000000$-mixtilinear incircle. While it rarely shows up on olympiads, it is one of the richest configurations I have seen, with many unexpected coincidences showing up, and I would be overjoyed if they become… Continue reading The Mixtilinear Incircle
Teaching A* USAMO Camp
In the last week of December I got a position as the morning instructor for the A* USAMO winter camp. Having long lost interest in coaching for short-answer contests, I'd been looking forward to an opportunity to teach an olympiad class for ages, and so I was absolutely psyched for that week. In this post… Continue reading Teaching A* USAMO Camp
Power Overwhelming 