花花酱 LeetCode 375. Guess Number Higher or Lower II

We are playing the Guess Game. The game is as follows:

I pick a number from 1 to n. You have to guess which number I picked.

Every time you guess wrong, I’ll tell you whether the number I picked is higher or lower.

However, when you guess a particular number x, and you guess wrong, you pay $x. You win the game when you guess the number I picked.

Example:

n = 10, I pick 8.

First round:  You guess 5, I tell you that it's higher. You pay $5.
Second round: You guess 7, I tell you that it's higher. You pay $7.
Third round:  You guess 9, I tell you that it's lower. You pay $9.

Game over. 8 is the number I picked.

You end up paying $5 + $7 + $9 = $21.

Given a particular n ≥ 1, find out how much money you need to have to guarantee a win.

Solution: DP

Use dp[l][r] to denote the min money to win the game if the current guessing range is [l, r], to guarantee a win, we need to try all possible numbers in [l, r]. Let say we guess K, we need to pay K and the game might continue if we were wrong. cost will be K + max(dp(l, K-1), dp(K+1, r)), we need max to cover all possible cases. Among all Ks, we picked the cheapest one.

dp[l][r] = min(k + max(dp[l][k – 1], dp[k+1][r]), for l <= k <= r.

Time complexity: O(n^3)
Space complexity: O(n^2)