I noticed Erin playing Battleship on her Kindle. "Hey, let's play the real thing, you and me." So we broke it out and played. Typically, if my kid is over 6, I play to win figuring that's how they learn. I usually go for the on-the-edges strategy because most players don't think you'll do that and keep aiming for the middle or just inside the edges. That's what I did this time but it turned out Erin did too.
Unfortunately for her, she went right to the corners on each one and it was very easy to figure out her pattern. So after I had sunk two of her ships and knew where two more were, I was feeling pretty good and condescendingly revealed that I had also followed her strategy. I continued to expound on the nuances of Battleship strategy and where she had gone wrong.
And then she got my two-piece ship. And my final two were at the lower edge.
She had bantered a lot about how some of my misses were close so I continued to focus my shots in one area, trying to find her last ship... yes, the two-piece one, the "destroyer". I even continued to give her "lessons" about how she shouldn't give out hints like that.
And then she got a hit on each of my last two ships.
As I continued to carpet-bomb the area in which I thought her ship was, she finished off my ships and won the game.
Turns out her last ship wasn't anywhere near where she had "accidently" led me to believe it was.
