Find winner on a tic-tac-toe game

Time: O(1); Space: O(1); easy

Tic-tac-toe is played by two players A and B on a 3 x 3 grid.

Here are the rules of Tic-Tac-Toe: * Players take turns placing characters into empty squares (” “). * The first player A always places”X” characters, while the second player B always places “O” characters. * “X” and “O” characters are always placed into empty squares, never on filled ones. * The game ends when there are 3 of the same (non-empty) character filling any row, column, or diagonal. * The game also ends if all squares are non-empty. * No more moves can be played if the game is over.

Given an array moves where each element is another array of size 2 corresponding to the row and column of the grid where they mark their respective character in the order in which A and B play.

Return the winner of the game if it exists (A or B), in case the game ends in a draw return “Draw”, if there are still movements to play return “Pending”.

You can assume that moves is valid (It follows the rules of Tic-Tac-Toe), the grid is initially empty and A will play first.

Example 1:

Input: moves = [[0,0],[2,0],[1,1],[2,1],[2,2]]

Output: “A”

Explanation:

“A” wins, he always plays first.

"X  "    "X  "    "X  "    "X  "    "X  "
"   " -> "   " -> " X " -> " X " -> " X "
"   "    "O  "    "O  "    "OO "    "OOX"

Example 2:

Input: moves = [[0,0],[1,1],[0,1],[0,2],[1,0],[2,0]]

Output: “B”

Explanation:

“B” wins.

"X  "    "X  "    "XX "    "XXO"    "XXO"    "XXO"
"   " -> " O " -> " O " -> " O " -> "XO " -> "XO "
"   "    "   "    "   "    "   "    "   "    "O  "

Example 3:

Input: moves = [[0,0],[1,1],[2,0],[1,0],[1,2],[2,1],[0,1],[0,2],[2,2]]

Output: “Draw”

Explanation:

  • The game ends in a draw since there are no moves to make.

    “XXO” “OOX” “XOX”

Example 4:

Input: moves = [[0,0],[1,1]]

Output: “Pending”

Explanation:

  • The game has not finished yet.

    “X” ” O ” ” “

Notes:

  • 1 <= len(moves)<= 9

  • len(moves[i]) == 2

  • 0 <= moves[i][j] <= 2

  • There are no repeated elements on moves.

  • moves follow the rules of tic tac toe.

Hints:

  1. It’s straightforward to check if A or B won or not, check for each row/column/diag if all the three are the same.

  2. Then if no one wins, the game is a draw iff the board is full, i.e. moves.length = 9 otherwise is pending.

[1]:
class Solution1(object):
    def tictactoe(self, moves):
        """
        :type moves: List[List[int]]
        :rtype: str
        """
        row, col = [[0]*3 for _ in range(2)], [[0]*3 for _ in range(2)]
        diag, anti_diag = [0]*2, [0]*2
        p = 0
        for r, c in moves:
            row[p][r] += 1
            col[p][c] += 1
            diag[p] += r == c
            anti_diag[p] += r+c == 2
            if 3 in (row[p][r], col[p][c], diag[p], anti_diag[p]):
                return "AB"[p]
            p ^= 1
        return "Draw" if len(moves) == 9 else "Pending"
[2]:
s = Solution1()

moves = [[0,0],[2,0],[1,1],[2,1],[2,2]]
assert s.tictactoe(moves) == "A"

moves = [[0,0],[1,1],[0,1],[0,2],[1,0],[2,0]]
assert s.tictactoe(moves) == "B"

moves = [[0,0],[1,1],[2,0],[1,0],[1,2],[2,1],[0,1],[0,2],[2,2]]
assert s.tictactoe(moves) == "Draw"

moves = [[0,0],[1,1]]
assert s.tictactoe(moves) == "Pending"