Count of Matches in Tournament

You are given an integer n, the number of teams in a tournament that has strange rules:

• If the current number of teams is even, each team gets paired with another team. A total of n / 2 matches are played, and n / 2 teams advance to the next round.

• If the current number of teams is odd, one team randomly advances in the tournament, and the rest gets paired. A total of (n - 1) / 2 matches are played, and (n - 1) / 2 + 1 teams advance to the next round.

Return the number of matches played in the tournament until a winner is decided.

LeetCode Problem - 1688

class Solution {
    public int numberOfMatches(int n) {
        // Initialize a variable to store the total number of matches played
        int answerMatches = 0;

        // Continue looping until only one team remains (i.e., n == 1)
        while(n != 1){
            // Check if the number of teams is even
            if(n % 2 == 0){
                // If even, add half the teams to the match count (since each match eliminates one team)
                answerMatches += n / 2;
                // Update the number of teams after the matches (half the teams move to the next round)
                n = n / 2;
            } else {
                // If odd, add half the teams (rounded down) to the match count
                answerMatches += n / 2;
                // Update the number of teams after the matches (one team moves directly to the next round)
                n = (n - 1) / 2 + 1;
            }
        }
        // Return the total number of matches played
        return answerMatches;
    }
}