I bought a mint copy of Computer Battleships, which I had when I was seven, and which my seven year old son is loving playing with me.

He seems to be very good at it, too good almost. In a game this morning out of a total of 31 shots, he scored 17 hits and 14 misses, sinking all my ships in the process.

For comparrison my ratio was almost the reverse and I still had to find his patrol boat, so probably the gap between misses and hits would have widened even further.

So, statistically speaking, is this likely or his he playing a sneaky game?

So, statistically speaking, is this likely or his he playing a sneaky game?

Since you’re just talking about a single game then there is nothing unlikely about it, google “texas sharp shooter fallacy” for more of what might be going on.

Personally I doubt that a 7 year old would be “sneaky” enough to have a hit rate like that. Were he cheating I’d expect it to be much higher.

I think rather than the total ratio of hits to misses, you need to find his ratio h/m when he is not filling in a ship he’s already got a hit on.

I can’t remember the numbers, but how many ships / size are they and what space do they take up? Say 1×5 + 2×4 + 2×3 + 1×2 = 21

Then what’s the total space? If it’s a 10×10 grid, 100

Then you’d expect him to have the same ratio of hits to misses, 21/100 = 1/5 hits (or 1:4 h:m) when aiming at random.

Probability then goes out of the window because once he has a hit, there’s a higher probability of the adjacent squares, and then virtual certainty once you have two.

Or maybe he makes you play with your back to a mirror?

maybe he’s just really really good at problem solving??, my 5year old nephew, seems to be a genius at jigsaws, and i don’t mean 15 piece jigsaws, you tip out a 150 piece puzzle and within minutes he has all the corners and borders linked and is working his way in, spotting all the visual conections faster than i can rattle off the components ona bike.

This. That’s way too poor a hit rate for him to be cheating – from the sounds of things you weren’t that far off, and if your 7yo is sneaky enough to do that then he’s a child genius.

CBA doing the maths – as mentioned it’s kind of tricky because you won’t be taking totally random guesses once you’ve got a hit (I’m sure it is possible to work it out, but it would take me hours). Also as gonefishin mentioned, you’re talking about a single occurrence.

Sorry – you’re just rubbish and your son is schooling you 😉

Battleships is easy.

Does he favour an area of the voard to start?

Put all ships as tighly spaced together as possible somewhere else.

The likely hood of him hitting something is high but he’ll be confused that nothing is sinking despite four hits in a line.

Then mix it up… all your ships in a row.

One ship in each corner etc

He could be correctly guessing where you’re likely to put your ships. Did you show him how to play by placing all your ships in a particular pattern, which he is then remembering and you’re doing it again? Maybe he just knows you too well and is anticipating your attempts to be random?

Look outside the mechanics of the game. As a kid I was regularly able to beat my granddad in games of cards. Nothing special about my card playing – I could just see what cards he was holding reflected in his glasses.