I'm working on a fun challenge with a deck of cards! The task involves examining a hand of four unique cards drawn from a standard 52-card deck. I want to check if the hand matches specific patterns. For instance, a pattern could be something like {3 of X, A of X, 3 of Y, B of Z}, where X, Y, and Z are distinct suits and A and B are different ranks. The order of the cards doesn't matter, which adds an interesting twist. I also need to extract the values of variables A and B and keep track of their original indexes in the hand. For example, if A of X is at index 1 and B of Z is at index 3, I need that info too. The hands can be sorted, but I must track each card's original index. Since there are many patterns to match, a general solution would be ideal, but I want something efficient as it'll be run frequently. I already have a generalized solution, but I'm curious how others tackle similar problems. Thanks for the help!
2 Answers
It sounds like you're dealing with a complex problem! You're right that coming up with an algorithm for each pattern might get messy. One approach is to check if hands can form hierarchies, meaning some patterns might relate to others. Although, at the end of the day, figuring out each pattern will still require some thought. Also, I'd say if you do have a general solution already, stick with it unless you find a better method!
You might want to leverage the limited number of combinations you can get from the card deck. By keeping track of which patterns apply to each possible combination, you could make pattern checks super quick. It would require some memory to store that data, but given the number of queries, it could be worth it!
Interesting thought! With about 270,725 possible hands, caching patterns could indeed speed things up, especially if I hash them for quick lookups.
Thanks for the suggestion! I'll keep working on defining those hierarchies; it could help simplify things.