Martyna Łopianiak, a student of our Faculty, has once again become the team champion of the International Championships of Mathematical and Logical Games, which were this year held in Milan. It is the best result of the Polish team in the history of its starts this competition. Congratulations!

International Championships of Mathematical and Logical Games, unofficially known as the mathematical world championships, were held at Bocconi University in Milan. The Polish team consisted of 52 people: 41 competitors in the main event and 11 in the parallel competition.

One of the representatives of our country was Martyna Łopianiak, a second-cycle Applied Computer Science student at our Faculty. Together with the other members of the Polish student team, she won in the L2 Team Competition category, repeating the success from the previous year.

Two days of competition

Team competitions lasted for two days. Each day, each of the four team members individually solved 18 tasks of increasing difficulty. The team's score consisted of the sum of correctly solved tasks.

“The tasks seemed somewhat simpler than in previous editions, but that's why they required even greater focus and absolutely no room for minor errors. The competition was fierce and our rivals were right on our heels,” reports our student.

After the first day, the Polish team was nearly on par with the French national team, and the Swiss were right behind them. “The second day went much better for us and we ultimately won with a comfortable advantage,” Martyna adds.

The Polish team representing the University of Warsaw, Wrocław University of Science and Technology, and University of Wrocław finally outperformed teams from France, Switzerland, and Belgium.

“I am very pleased with this result and I hope that once again we have proven that the analytical skills and logical thinking of Polish students are at the highest global level,” says Martyna Łopianiak.

The best result of the Polish team in the history of the competition

The success of the student team was part of the record-breaking performance of the entire Polish national team. In Milan, they won six gold, five silver, and four bronze medals.

The Poles were on the podium in all eight individual categories, and five of them won. Gold medals went to Adam Guzik, Adam Penszyński, Maciej Hryniewicz, Robert Soboński, and Łukasz Bożyk. Silver medals went to Iwetta Putała, Nikodem Wilczyński, Mateusz Bąk, Maciej Ignaciuk, and Paweł Rachel, while bronze ones – to Andrzej Pokorski, Nina Głowacka, Mateusz Kaźmierczak, and Hubert Orlik-Grzesik.

In total, the Poles won in six out of nine main competitions. So far, the best result of our team had been 12 medals.

From puzzles to international finals

Martyna has been interested in mathematics and logic games since her earliest years. She has competed in many editions of the Mathematical and Logical Games Championships. In 2019, when she finished middle school, she qualified for the international final of the competition in Paris, where she took seventh place.

The tasks solved during the championships are significantly different from those solved at school or in final exams. They do not require the knowledge of many complicated mathematical formulas. What matters most are logical thinking and perceptiveness. Some of the tasks involve combinatorics, probability and geometry.

“For example, you need to find out how many possibilities there are to do something or how many ways there are from point A to B. You may encounter a complex maze of numbers that needs to be traversed in a way that collects the smallest sum by passing through all the squares. Or you need to write numbers in the square in such a way that they follow a certain rule,” explains Martyna.