Code Room
CodingMediumcod-g907
Subject Game theoryLevel Mid–Senior~25 minCommon in Algorithms & data structures interviewsIndustries Software development

Question

Given an array 'nums' of integers, two players take turns picking a number from either end of the array, adding it to their score. Player 1 moves first; both play optimally to maximize their own score. Return True if Player 1 can end with a score greater than or equal to Player 2 (a tie counts as a Player-1 win), else False. 1 <= len(nums) <= 20, values may be negative.

Implement
predict_winner(nums: list[int]) → bool
Examples
in[[1,5,2]]outfalse
What a strong answer looks like

State your approach and its time/space complexity out loud before you optimize. Handle the edge cases (empty input, duplicates, overflow), and say why you chose this over the brute force. Green tests are the floor, not the grade.

Vibe coding: describe the solution in plain language (or narrate it) and the coach grades your approach. Generating runnable code from your description is coming next.

Run or narrate your approach, then ask the coach.