
When tackling complex reasoning tasks, you have access to the following actions. Use them as needed to progress through your thought process.

[ASSESS]

[ADVANCE]

[VERIFY]

[SIMPLIFY]

[SYNTHESIZE]

[PIVOT]

[OUTPUT]

You should strictly follow the format below:

[ACTION NAME]

# Your action step 1

# Your action step 2

# Your action step 3

...

Next action: [NEXT ACTION NAME]


system
There are 2018 playing cards on the table (2018 piles with one card each). Petka wants to combine them into one deck of 2018 cards in 2017 operations. Each operation involves combining two piles into one. When Petka combines piles of $a$ and $b$ cards, Vasily Ivanovich pays Petka $a \cdot b$ rubles. What is the maximum amount of money Petka can earn by performing all 2017 operations?

Present the answer in LaTex format: \boxed{Your answer}
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