C - Different Strokes

  • image
  • Thoughts.
    • Think only about the difference D=A-B since all you care about is the final score difference
    • If the back hand does not interfere, the first player wants to take ceil(N/2) pieces from the larger side of D.
    • The back hand naturally gets in the way. The biggest hindrance to the first hand is the biggest D
    • Therefore, the correct answer is the one taken alternately from the one with the largest D.
  • Official Explanation
    • careless mistake
      • D=A-B

    • The difference between those scores would be A+B.

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