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This one moves smallmax into a precomputed global table.

$ python2.4 -m timeit 'int("999999999")'
1000000 loops, best of 3: 0.863 usec per loop
$ python2.4 -m timeit 'int("9")'
1000000 loops, best of 3: 0.716 usec per loop
$ ./python -m timeit 'int("999999999")'
1000000 loops, best of 3: 0.766 usec per loop
$ ./python -m timeit 'int("9")'
1000000 loops, best of 3: 0.694 usec per loop

So 0.863 -> 0.766 and 0.716 -> 0.694.  11% and 3%.  I
wouldn't bother if it weren't fixing a bug, but maybe the
http://spoj.sphere.pl test will show a larger difference.