<p>Alice and Bob take turns playing a game, with <strong>Alice starting first</strong>.</p>

<p>There are <code>n</code> stones arranged in a row. On each player&#39;s turn, they can <strong>remove</strong> either the leftmost stone or the rightmost stone from the row and receive points equal to the <strong>sum</strong> of the remaining stones&#39; values in the row. The winner is the one with the higher score when there are no stones left to remove.</p>

<p>Bob found that he will always lose this game (poor Bob, he always loses), so he decided to <strong>minimize the score&#39;s difference</strong>. Alice&#39;s goal is to <strong>maximize the difference</strong> in the score.</p>

<p>Given an array of integers <code>stones</code> where <code>stones[i]</code> represents the value of the <code>i<sup>th</sup></code> stone <strong>from the left</strong>, return <em>the <strong>difference</strong> in Alice and Bob&#39;s score if they both play <strong>optimally</strong>.</em></p>

<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><strong class="example">Example 1:</strong></p>

<pre>
<strong>Input:</strong> stones = [5,3,1,4,2]
<strong>Output:</strong> 6
<strong>Explanation:</strong> 
- Alice removes 2 and gets 5 + 3 + 1 + 4 = 13 points. Alice = 13, Bob = 0, stones = [5,3,1,4].
- Bob removes 5 and gets 3 + 1 + 4 = 8 points. Alice = 13, Bob = 8, stones = [3,1,4].
- Alice removes 3 and gets 1 + 4 = 5 points. Alice = 18, Bob = 8, stones = [1,4].
- Bob removes 1 and gets 4 points. Alice = 18, Bob = 12, stones = [4].
- Alice removes 4 and gets 0 points. Alice = 18, Bob = 12, stones = [].
The score difference is 18 - 12 = 6.
</pre>

<p><strong class="example">Example 2:</strong></p>

<pre>
<strong>Input:</strong> stones = [7,90,5,1,100,10,10,2]
<strong>Output:</strong> 122</pre>

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

<ul>
	<li><code>n == stones.length</code></li>
	<li><code>2 &lt;= n &lt;= 1000</code></li>
	<li><code>1 &lt;= stones[i] &lt;= 1000</code></li>
</ul>

class Solution:
    def stoneGameVII(self, stones: List[int]) -> int:
        n = len(stones)
        
        # Calculate the prefix sum for quick range sum calculation
        prefix_sum = [0] * (n + 1)
        for i in range(n):
            prefix_sum[i + 1] = prefix_sum[i] + stones[i]
        
        # Initialize the DP table
        dp = [[0] * n for _ in range(n)]
        
        # Fill the DP table
        for length in range(2, n + 1):
            for i in range(n - length + 1):
                j = i + length - 1
                dp[i][j] = max(
                    prefix_sum[j + 1] - prefix_sum[i + 1] - dp[i + 1][j],  # Remove leftmost stone
                    prefix_sum[j] - prefix_sum[i] - dp[i][j - 1]  # Remove rightmost stone
                )
        
        return dp[0][n - 1]

# Example usage:
solution = Solution()
stones = [5, 3, 1, 4, 2]
print(solution.stoneGameVII(stones))  # Output: 6
1822