Alex and Lee play a game with piles of stones.  There are an even number of piles arranged in a row, and each pile has a positive integer number of stones piles[i].
The objective of the game is to end with the most stones.  The total number of stones is odd, so there are no ties.
Alex and Lee take turns, with Alex starting first.  Each turn, a player takes the entire pile of stones from either the beginning or the end of the row.  This continues until there are no more piles left, at which point the person with the most stones wins.
Assuming Alex and Lee play optimally, return True if and only if Alex wins the game.
 
Example 1:
Input: piles = [5,3,4,5]
Output: true
Explanation: 
Alex starts first, and can only take the first 5 or the last 5.
Say he takes the first 5, so that the row becomes [3, 4, 5].
If Lee takes 3, then the board is [4, 5], and Alex takes 5 to win with 10 points.
If Lee takes the last 5, then the board is [3, 4], and Alex takes 4 to win with 9 points.
This demonstrated that taking the first 5 was a winning move for Alex, so we return true.

 
Constraints:

2 <= piles.length <= 500
piles.length is even.
1 <= piles[i] <= 500
sum(piles) is odd.

```python

USER_FILENAME = "<user_code>"
import sys, json, builtins
import math, heapq, bisect, itertools, functools, collections, statistics, fractions, decimal, operator, array, random, re, string, os, pathlib
try:
    import resource as _res
except Exception:
    _res = None
from collections import Counter, defaultdict, deque, OrderedDict
from functools import lru_cache, reduce
from itertools import accumulate, permutations, combinations, product
from math import gcd, ceil, floor, sqrt
from decimal import Decimal
try:
    from typing import *
except Exception:
    pass
try:
    sys.setrecursionlimit(1_000_000)
except Exception:
    pass
try:
    import site as _site
    try:
        _sys_sites = _site.getsitepackages() if hasattr(_site, "getsitepackages") else []
        for _p in _sys_sites:
            if _p and _p not in sys.path:
                sys.path.append(_p)
    except Exception:
        pass
    try:
        _usp = _site.getusersitepackages()
        if isinstance(_usp, str):
            _usp = [_usp]
        for _p in _usp:
            if _p and _p not in sys.path:
                sys.path.append(_p)
    except Exception:
        pass
except Exception:
    pass

def _disabled_input(*args, **kwargs):
    raise RuntimeError("input() is disabled in callable mode")
builtins.input = _disabled_input

ns = {"__name__": "__judge__"}  # prevent if __name__ == "__main__" blocks
for _k, _v in list(globals().items()):
    if not _k.startswith("_"):
        ns[_k] = _v
_CODE = 'class Solution:\n    def stoneGame(self, piles: List[int]) -> bool:\n        N = len(piles)\n        def dp(i, j):\n            # The value of the game [piles[i], piles[i+1], ..., piles[j]].\n            if i > j: return 0\n            parity = (j - i - N) % 2\n            if parity == 1:  # first player\n                return max(piles[i] + dp(i+1,j), piles[j] + dp(i,j-1))\n            else:\n                return min(-piles[i] + dp(i+1,j), -piles[j] + dp(i,j-1))\n        \n        # this is actually min max tree traversal :D\n        @lru_cache(None)\n        def recursion(i, j):\n            if i > j:\n                return 0\n            curr_len = (j - i)\n            if curr_len % 2 == 0:\n                return min(-piles[i] + recursion(i+1, j), -piles[j] + recursion(i, j-1))\n            else:\n                return max(piles[i] + recursion(i+1, j), piles[j] + recursion(i, j-1))\n        \n        return recursion(0, N - 1) > 0'
_co = compile(_CODE, USER_FILENAME, "exec")
exec(_co, ns, ns)

_target = None
_fn_name = 'stoneGame'
if _fn_name:
    if "Solution" in ns:
        try:
            _obj = ns["Solution"]()
            if hasattr(_obj, _fn_name):
                _target = getattr(_obj, _fn_name)
        except Exception:
            _target = None
    if _target is None and _fn_name in ns and callable(ns[_fn_name]):
        _target = ns[_fn_name]
# Fallback: if there's exactly one user-defined function, use it
if _target is None:
    _cands = [v for k, v in ns.items() if callable(v) and getattr(v, "__module__", "") in ("__judge__", "__main__")]
    _user_funcs = [c for c in _cands if getattr(c, "__name__", "").startswith("_") is False]
    if len(_user_funcs) == 1:
        _target = _user_funcs[0]
if _target is None:
    raise RuntimeError(f"Could not resolve callable '{_fn_name}'")

_raw = sys.stdin.read().strip()
if _raw:
    _parsed = json.loads(_raw)
    if isinstance(_parsed, dict):
        _kwargs = _parsed.get("kwargs", {})
        _args = _parsed.get("args", [])
    else:
        _args, _kwargs = _parsed, {}
else:
    _args, _kwargs = [], {}
if not isinstance(_args, (list, tuple)):
    _args = [_args]
_res = _target(*_args, **_kwargs)
try:
    sys.stdout.write(repr(_res) + "\n")
except Exception:
    pass

```

Measured memory_bytes: 10116