https://codeforces.me/problemset/problem/49/D

I managed to solve this problem with a very very complicated approach involving separating groups of consecutive characters which are same. Then separating the even-sized groups and then applying some DP on them.

My submission :

https://codeforces.me/contest/49/submission/167985059

I want to ask if anyone can tell me a simpler approach. I tried to find an editorial but there were none. I also couldn't make sense of some accepted submissions that I tried to look at.