Wanna Play?

My 5-year-old and I play Battleship from time to time. The game is pretty popular at his school, so the kids play a lot. As a result, since it is one of those games where you can only be just so good at, there is about an even chance either of us will win, and the matches are always close. 

I taught him that with games like this it is important to know your opponent. Are you playing the kind of person that likes things nice and neat? Do they like patterns? Do they tend to stay away from the edges? Do they tend to guess certain rows or columns more or less than others, so it makes sense to cluster your ships?  And always, always listen out for the slightest of pauses before someone says "miss", because that means you probably hit right next to a ship and your opponent is mentally double-checking the coordinates. 

“Play the man, not the board”, style of thing. 

A few weeks ago, I called out A-1 as my first shot and got a hit. On a whim, for my next shot I called out J-10. Also a hit. I said "You know, dude, I am pretty sure I know where all your ships are." He said "Seriously?" I said "You have one boat in each corner and the last one is in the very middle of the ocean."  His eyes got huge but, to his credit, he said nothing. His mother, sitting behind him on a chair, looked up from what she was reading, glanced at his board, and went back to browsing the web. I proceeded to obliterate his fleet, missing only a few times. Only one boat remained and I started my hunt around the middle of the board. 

Miss upon miss upon miss... After about 20 consecutive splashes, unbombed real-estate was getting pretty scarce and three of my boats were sitting on the bottom of the sea. I knew - knew - I was right about his pattern.  There was simply no way I was wrong. I must have sounded frustrated because the wife looked up at his board again and said "Honey, he moved a boat."

I looked up at him and he nodded at me.  His face was blank but his eyes clearly held the question "How much trouble am I in?"  

"You know that's cheating, right?"  Another nod. 

I let the moment hang for about five seconds and calmly said "Don't do that again. Especially don't do that at school."  

“Yes, sir.  I won't... and I don't, " was his reply. He meant it.

"Ok," I said, pausing again. "Your turn."  

It took me a few shots but I finally found and sunk the sub nestled neatly in its new home on the J row where he knew I would never, ever look.

You might wonder why I chose to continue the game. After all, isn't cheating an immediate forfeit?  Isn't cheating bad and wrong?  Shouldn't you always be honest?  Sure, but that's just a first-order approximation of how the real world works.  Grown-ups know this.

Also, let’s look at it from his point of view.  His opponent knew where all his ships were and told him so.  Since he knows that second only to the rule "Don't be a bully" is the commandment "Don't be a quitter", there was nothing he could do to prevent a loss... legally.  The chips were grossly stacked against him, and he didn't whine or complain or fuss. There were two paths - one with a guaranteed loss paved with honor and the other with only a probable loss paved with moral dubiousness. 

Look… I am not trying to say this kindergartner wracked his tiny little soul wrestling with the implications of some sort of Cornelian dilemma or some weird jazz like that. He’s five. He was going 45 in a 35 zone (so to speak), got nailed, and paid the fine.  

Is it something to be worried about? No.  It would be if he was proud about it.  It would be if he thought it was a big joke.  It would be if he cried about it.  It would be if he pouted and said it wasn’t fair.  It would be if he said he never wanted anything to do with the game again.  Instead, after the final shot was fired, he said “Play again?”

I smiled.  “Sure, buddy, let’s do it.”

The next game I got lucky and hit five times along the C row.  “I didn’t sink the aircraft carrier?” I asked.  

Long pause.  “No… but you sank the 2-boat”.

“Oh,” I said, thinking I had stumbled into one of those weird instances where ships are lined up just right and you half-sink one before moving unknowingly onto another. The wife again glanced up, looked at the board, leaned closer to it, frowned, then looked at me.

I looked at her and then at him.  He turned the board around and showed me the pic you see in the upper left of this post.  “I was… I was using the 2-boat as, you know, a shield.”

Sigh.  Maybe taking him to see Ender’s Game wasn’t such a great idea after all…

Anyway, like I said, that was a couple of weeks ago and we have had many other games since then.  As I finish writing this, he just challenged me to yet another rematch (I won the last one a few days ago), so I gotta jet.  

Wish me luck.