diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 182d273..1894ac8 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -3,16 +3,13 @@
 ![nanochat logo](dev/nanochat.png)
 ![scaling laws](dev/scaling_laws_jan26.png)
 
-nanochat is the simplest experimental harness for training LLMs. It is designed to run on a single GPU node, the code is minimal/hackable, and it covers all major LLM stages including tokenization, pretraining, finetuning, evaluation, inference, and a chat UI. For example, you can train your own GPT-2 capability LLM (which cost ~$50,000 to train in 2019) for only $73 (3 hours of 8XH100 GPU node) and then talk to it in a familiar ChatGPT-like web UI.
+nanochat is the simplest experimental harness for training LLMs. It is designed to run on a single GPU node, the code is minimal/hackable, and it covers all major LLM stages including tokenization, pretraining, finetuning, evaluation, inference, and a chat UI. For example, you can train your own GPT-2 capability LLM (which cost ~$43,000 to train in 2019) for only $72 (~3 hours of 8XH100 GPU node) and then talk to it in a familiar ChatGPT-like web UI. On a spot instance, the total cost can be closer to ~$20. More generally, nanochat is configured out of the box to train an entire miniseries of compute-optimal models by setting one single complexity dial: `--depth`, the number of layers in the GPT transformer model (GPT-2 capability happens to be approximately depth 26). All other hyperparameters (the width of the transformer, number of heads, learning rate adjustments, training horizons, weight decays, ...) are calculated automatically in an optimal way.
 
 For questions about the repo, I recommend either using [DeepWiki](https://deepwiki.com/karpathy/nanochat) from Devin/Cognition to ask questions about the repo, or use the [Discussions tab](https://github.com/karpathy/nanochat/discussions), or come by the [#nanochat](https://discord.com/channels/1020383067459821711/1427295580895314031) channel on Discord.
 
-## Updates
+## Time-to-GPT-2 Leaderboard
 
-- (Jan 31 2026) Major revamp of all scripts/README ongoing, deleting midtraining stage, might be a bit messy briefly...
-- (Jan 30 2026) With all the latest improvements we're able to train GPT-2 grade LLM in about $73. The [runs/speedrun.sh](runs/speedrun.sh) script will become the reference way to train GPT-2 grade model and talk to it.
-
-## Leaderboard
+Presently, the main focus of development is on tuning the pretraining stage, which takes the most amount of compute. Inspired by the modded-nanogpt repo and to incentivise progress and community collaboration, nanochat maintains a leaderboard for a "GPT-2 speedrun", which is the wall-clock time required to train a nanochat model to GPT-2 grade capability, as measured by the DCLM CORE score. The [runs/speedrun.sh](runs/speedrun.sh) script always reflects the reference way to train GPT-2 grade model and talk to it. The current leaderboard looks as follows:
 
 | # | time | val_bpb | CORE | Description | Date | Commit | Contributors |
 |---|-------------|---------|------|-------------|------|--------|--------------|
@@ -21,7 +18,7 @@ For questions about the repo, I recommend either using [DeepWiki](https://deepwi
 | 2 | 2.91 | 0.74504 | 0.2578 | d26 slightly undertrained **+fp8** | Feb 2 2026 | a67eba3 | @karpathy |
 | 3 | 2.76 | 0.74645 | 0.2602 | bump total batch size to 1M tokens | Feb 5 2026 | 2c062aa | @karpathy |
 
-The primary metric we care about is "time to GPT-2" - the wall clock time needed to outperform the GPT-2 (1.6B) CORE metric on an 8XH100 GPU node. The GPT-2 CORE score is 0.256525. In 2019, the training of GPT-2 cost approximately $50,000 so it is incredible that due to many advances over 7 years across the stack, we can now do so much faster and for well below $100 (e.g. at the current ~$3/GPU/hr, an 8XH100 node is ~$24/hr, so 3 hours is ~$72).
+The primary metric we care about is "time to GPT-2" - the wall clock time needed to outperform the GPT-2 (1.6B) CORE metric on an 8XH100 GPU node. The GPT-2 CORE score is 0.256525. In 2019, the training of GPT-2 cost approximately $43,000 so it is incredible that due to many advances over 7 years across the stack, we can now do so much faster and for well below $100 (e.g. at the current ~$3/GPU/hr, an 8XH100 node is ~$24/hr, so 3 hours is ~$72).
 
 See [dev/LEADERBOARD.md](dev/LEADERBOARD.md) for more docs on how to interpret and contribute to the leaderboard.
 
@@ -29,7 +26,7 @@ See [dev/LEADERBOARD.md](dev/LEADERBOARD.md) for more docs on how to interpret a
 
 ### Reproduce and talk to GPT-2
 
-The most fun you can have is to train your own GPT-2 and talk to it. The entire pipeline to do so is contained in the single file [runs/speedrun.sh](runs/speedrun.sh), which is designed to be run on an 8XH100 GPU node. Currently, at ~$24/hour for these nodes, pretraining a GPT-2 grade model takes approximately 3 hours and will set you back about $75. Boot up a new 8XH100 GPU box from your favorite provider (e.g. I use and like [Lambda](https://lambda.ai/service/gpu-cloud)), and kick off the training script:
+The most fun you can have is to train your own GPT-2 and talk to it. The entire pipeline to do so is contained in the single file [runs/speedrun.sh](runs/speedrun.sh), which is designed to be run on an 8XH100 GPU node. Boot up a new 8XH100 GPU box from your favorite provider (e.g. I use and like [Lambda](https://lambda.ai/service/gpu-cloud)), and kick off the training script:
 
 ```bash
 bash runs/speedrun.sh
@@ -70,7 +67,13 @@ OMP_NUM_THREADS=1 torchrun --standalone --nproc_per_node=8 -m scripts.base_train
     --save-every=-1 \
 ```
 
-This uses wandb (run name "d12"), only runs the CORE metric on last step, and it doesn't sample and save intermediate checkpoints. I like to change something in the code, re-run a d12 (or a d16 etc) and see if it helped, in an iteration loop.
+This uses wandb (run name "d12"), only runs the CORE metric on last step, and it doesn't sample and save intermediate checkpoints. I like to change something in the code, re-run a d12 (or a d16 etc) and see if it helped, in an iteration loop. To see if a run helps, I like to monitor the wandb plots for:
+
+1. `val_bpb` (validation loss in vocab-size-invariant units of bits per byte) as a function of `step`, `total_training_time` and `total_training_flops`.
+2. `core_metric` (the DCLM CORE socre)
+3. VRAM utilization, `train/mfu` (Model FLOPS utilization), `train/tok_per_sec` (training throughput)
+
+See an example [here](https://github.com/karpathy/nanochat/pull/498#issuecomment-3850720044).
 
 The important thing to note is that nanochat is written and configured around one single dial of complexity - the depth of the transformer. This single integer automatically determines all other hyperparameters (the width of the transformer, number of heads, learning rate adjustments, training horizons, weight decays, ...) so that the trained model comes out compute optimal. The idea is that the user doesn't have to think about or set any of this, they are simply asking for a smaller or bigger model using `--depth`, and everything "just works". By sweeping out the depth, you achieve the nanochat miniseries of compute optimal models at various sizes. GPT-2 capability model (which is of most interest at the moment) happens to be somewhere around d24-d26 range with the current code. But any candidate changes to the repo have to be principled enough that they work for all settings of depth.
 
@@ -80,12 +83,13 @@ The script [runs/runcpu.sh](runs/runcpu.sh) shows a very simple example of runni
 
 ## Guides
 
-I've published a number of guides that might contain helpful information:
+I've published a number of guides that might contain helpful information, most recent to least recent:
 
-- [Oct 13 2025 original nanochat post](https://github.com/karpathy/nanochat/discussions/1) introducing nanochat, though now it contains some deprecated information and the model is a lot older (with worse results) than current master.
+- [Feb 1 2026: Beating GPT-2 for <<$100: the nanochat journey](https://github.com/karpathy/nanochat/discussions/481)
 - [Jan 7 miniseries v1](https://github.com/karpathy/nanochat/discussions/420) documents the first nanochat miniseries of models.
-- To customize your nanochat, see [Guide: infusing identity to your nanochat](https://github.com/karpathy/nanochat/discussions/139) in Discussions, which describes how you can tune your nanochat's personality through synthetic data generation and mixing that data into the SFT stage.
 - To add new abilities to nanochat, see [Guide: counting r in strawberry (and how to add abilities generally)](https://github.com/karpathy/nanochat/discussions/164).
+- To customize your nanochat, see [Guide: infusing identity to your nanochat](https://github.com/karpathy/nanochat/discussions/139) in Discussions, which describes how you can tune your nanochat's personality through synthetic data generation and mixing that data into the SFT stage.
+- [Oct 13 2025: original nanochat post](https://github.com/karpathy/nanochat/discussions/1) introducing nanochat, though now it contains some deprecated information and the model is a lot older (with worse results) than current master.
 
 ## File structure