# [leetcode] straightforward python solution No-sorting - W/ thinking process and solution explanation

A micro post of a solution to a coding question - https://leetcode.com/problems/last-stone-weight/

Intuition: Reduce the problem to a sub-problem and recusrively solve it.

Explanation: Start by finding largest and second largest stone in the list, and destroy one of them or both based on their value, then we have reduced stones array by either 1 or 2 depends on if they are equal. Then we recursively call on the remaining stones. Base case is when stones array has one item in it, then we simply return it.

def lastStoneWeight(self, stones):
"""
:type stones: List[int]
:rtype: int
"""
if not stones: return 0
if len(stones) == 1: return stones[0]
x = y = None
for i, s in enumerate(stones):
if y is None or s > stones[y]: x = y; y = i
elif x is None or s > stones[x]: x = i
f, s = min(x, y), max(x, y)
nxt = stones[:f] + stones[f+1:s] + stones[s+1:]
if stones[f] == stones[s]:
return self.lastStoneWeight(nxt)
else:
return self.lastStoneWeight(nxt+[stones[y]-stones[x]])