<p>You are given an <code>m x n</code> matrix <code>board</code>, representing the<strong> current </strong>state of a crossword puzzle. The crossword contains lowercase English letters (from solved words), <code>&#39; &#39;</code> to represent any <strong>empty </strong>cells, and <code>&#39;#&#39;</code> to represent any <strong>blocked</strong> cells.</p>

<p>A word can be placed<strong> horizontally</strong> (left to right <strong>or</strong> right to left) or <strong>vertically</strong> (top to bottom <strong>or</strong> bottom to top) in the board if:</p>

<ul>
	<li>It does not occupy a cell containing the character <code>&#39;#&#39;</code>.</li>
	<li>The cell each letter is placed in must either be <code>&#39; &#39;</code> (empty) or <strong>match</strong> the letter already on the <code>board</code>.</li>
	<li>There must not be any empty cells <code>&#39; &#39;</code> or other lowercase letters <strong>directly left or right</strong><strong> </strong>of the word if the word was placed <strong>horizontally</strong>.</li>
	<li>There must not be any empty cells <code>&#39; &#39;</code> or other lowercase letters <strong>directly above or below</strong> the word if the word was placed <strong>vertically</strong>.</li>
</ul>

<p>Given a string <code>word</code>, return <code>true</code><em> if </em><code>word</code><em> can be placed in </em><code>board</code><em>, or </em><code>false</code><em> <strong>otherwise</strong></em>.</p>

<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><strong class="example">Example 1:</strong></p>
<img alt="" src="https://assets.leetcode.com/uploads/2021/10/04/crossword-ex1-1.png" style="width: 478px; height: 180px;" />
<pre>
<strong>Input:</strong> board = [[&quot;#&quot;, &quot; &quot;, &quot;#&quot;], [&quot; &quot;, &quot; &quot;, &quot;#&quot;], [&quot;#&quot;, &quot;c&quot;, &quot; &quot;]], word = &quot;abc&quot;
<strong>Output:</strong> true
<strong>Explanation:</strong> The word &quot;abc&quot; can be placed as shown above (top to bottom).
</pre>

<p><strong class="example">Example 2:</strong></p>
<img alt="" src="https://assets.leetcode.com/uploads/2021/10/04/crossword-ex2-1.png" style="width: 180px; height: 180px;" />
<pre>
<strong>Input:</strong> board = [[&quot; &quot;, &quot;#&quot;, &quot;a&quot;], [&quot; &quot;, &quot;#&quot;, &quot;c&quot;], [&quot; &quot;, &quot;#&quot;, &quot;a&quot;]], word = &quot;ac&quot;
<strong>Output:</strong> false
<strong>Explanation:</strong> It is impossible to place the word because there will always be a space/letter above or below it.</pre>

<p><strong class="example">Example 3:</strong></p>
<img alt="" src="https://assets.leetcode.com/uploads/2021/10/04/crossword-ex3-1.png" style="width: 478px; height: 180px;" />
<pre>
<strong>Input:</strong> board = [[&quot;#&quot;, &quot; &quot;, &quot;#&quot;], [&quot; &quot;, &quot; &quot;, &quot;#&quot;], [&quot;#&quot;, &quot; &quot;, &quot;c&quot;]], word = &quot;ca&quot;
<strong>Output:</strong> true
<strong>Explanation:</strong> The word &quot;ca&quot; can be placed as shown above (right to left). 
</pre>

<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><strong>Constraints:</strong></p>

<ul>
	<li><code>m == board.length</code></li>
	<li><code>n == board[i].length</code></li>
	<li><code>1 &lt;= m * n &lt;= 2 * 10<sup>5</sup></code></li>
	<li><code>board[i][j]</code> will be <code>&#39; &#39;</code>, <code>&#39;#&#39;</code>, or a lowercase English letter.</li>
	<li><code>1 &lt;= word.length &lt;= max(m, n)</code></li>
	<li><code>word</code> will contain only lowercase English letters.</li>
</ul>

class Solution:
    def placeWordInCrossword(self, board: List[List[str]], word: str) -> bool:
        """
            ' '  represents empty
            # represnts blocked cells

            Here are the rules when going through DFS
            if you are starting an empty block
                1. Each block it starts, there must be only one path available. If there's more than one, can't be a start path
                2. Whenever the opened path is, that's the direction that it's going to take.
                3. When it reaches the end of the path,
                    if dead end path because of "#" or out of bounds, return if not word
                    if not dead end
        """
        word1 = word[::-1]
        def check(q, w):
            n = len(word)
            for s in q:
                if len(s) == n and all(s[i] == w[i] or s[i] == ' ' for i in range(n)): 
                    return True
            return False

        for row in board:
            q = ''.join(row).split('#')
            if check(q, word) or check(q, word1):
                return True

        for row in zip(*board):
            q = ''.join(row).split('#')
            if check(q, word) or check(q, word1):
                return True

        return False

1153