Bag of Tokens — LeetCode 948 Python Solution

The problem

You start with an initial power of power, an initial score of 0, and a bag of tokens given as an integer array tokens, where each tokens[i] denotes the value of tokeni. Your goal is to maximize the total score by strategically playing these tokens.

Python solution

class Solution:
    def bagOfTokensScore(self, tokens: List[int], power: int) -> int:
        tokens.sort()
        ans = score = 0
        i, j = 0, len(tokens) - 1
        while i <= j:
            if power >= tokens[i]:
                power -= tokens[i]
                score, i = score + 1, i + 1
                ans = max(ans, score)
            elif score:
                power += tokens[j]
                score, j = score - 1, j - 1
            else:
                break
        return ans

Complexity

Pattern: Two Pointers

Use the order already in the input to discard half the search space at every step. LeetCode 948. Bag of Tokens is filed here because LeetCode tags it Two Pointers, which is the vocabulary this hub collects.

The two pointers guide has the Python template for the pattern and the 201 LeetCode problems that use it.

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