19th at ICPC Nationals: what losing taught me
May 18, 2026 · ICPC · Competitive · C++ · Morelos
We arrived at the 2025 ICPC Mexico Finals with an advantage nobody sees in the standings: zero pressure. The Instituto Tecnológico de Zacatepec had sent teams before, but ours — Full-Time Plis — was the first from our institution to get this far.
We finished 19th nationally, the best team from the state of Morelos. And although the result sounds like a cold number, for me it was the thesis of years of robotics and math olympiads distilled into a single afternoon of code.
What actually matters
- Read the problem before you code. Half the teams lose time implementing the wrong interpretation. For the first 20 ICPC practice problems, I read twice: once to understand, once to hunt for traps.
- Split tasks by strength, not ego. In a team, the best coder shouldn’t always be the one at the keyboard first.
- Know when to drop a problem. Sunk-cost bias is brutal. My rule: if I have no path after 30 minutes, I write it down and move on.
Morelos exists on the national scene
A fact I love repeating: in that final, we were the strongest team from Morelos. Not because of individual genius, but consistency. We practiced with Gran Premio de México editorials, solved old problems and put in many hours on Codeforces with leo_rc and abraham_arteaga.
Here’s what losing taught me: 19th out of 140 teams feels like a victory when you come from a state where people told you it was impossible.
The next final is in sight. And this time, no fear of geometry problems.