Bath Mawr Coch

In one of my first posts you will see how my eagerness to gloat of my success unleashed Dave into the HHP. He has subsequently been at the top of the leaderboard from the beginning, whereas my progress was more gradual. Eventually we seemed to converge to a similar score and even held positions 1 & 2 for a while, which was very surprising to me given the caliber of contestants that this competition has attracted.

We have now decided to join forces, hence the appearance of team Bath Mawr Coch. Hopefully there will be some synergy in our methods.

Dave and I are both competition junkies. We first cam into contact as a result of the KDDCup 2004 contest, which Dave won - and you will see my effort in a lowly 11th place. The leaderboard was left open after the conclusion of the contest, and I eventually got to top spot, which is obviously not that impressive when the winners had already revealed what they did - but I had learnt things and been able to implement them. I then contacted Dave to gloat - and he immediately overtook me.


We have since worked on a couple of other competitions together, and won the NCDM Analytic challenge in 2008.


Competitions like the HHP are a great way to learn and to also meet others with similar interests. I'm sure many collaborations and friendships will be made as a result, to the benefit of everyone.