Thursday, May 17, 2012

How to Win at Battleship

Battleship 1

I used to play Battleship with my son, but he doesn't want to play with me any more. He's often wondered how I can consistently win the game. He assumes (and he's right) that, since I'm a game theorist, I've probably figured out some sort of mind-reading trick to be able to intuit where his ships are located. Apart from mind reading, I also rely on an optimal search strategy. Anyway, here's an amusing piece in Slate about a Microsoft employee who has taken this idea to its logical extreme.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2012/05/16/_battleship_how_to_win_the_classic_board_game_every_time.html

1 comment:

Unknown said...

It is very easy to write game theory applications because we just work for people who are serious in their studies and want to give their best.