Two-Letter Card Game
You are given a deck of cards represented by a string array cards, and each card displays two lowercase letters.
You are also given a letter x. You play a game with the following rules:
- Start with
0points. - On each turn, you must find two compatible cards from the deck that both contain the letter
xin any position. - Remove the pair of cards and earn 1 point.
- The game ends when you can no longer find a pair of compatible cards.
Return the maximum number of points you can gain with optimal play.
Two cards are compatible if the strings differ in exactly 1 position.
Example 1
Input
cards = ["aa","ab","ba","ac"], x = "a"Output
2Select and remove
"ab" with "ac", then "aa" with "ba", for a total score of 2.Example 2
Input
cards = ["aa","ab","ba"], x = "a"Output
1Selecting and removing
"aa" and "ba" gives 1 point, after which no more compatible pairs remain.Constraints
- 2 <= cards.length <= 10^5
- cards[i].length == 2
- Each cards[i] is composed of only lowercase English letters between 'a' and 'j'.
- x is a lowercase English letter between 'a' and 'j'.