"To win a game of Battleship, you need to do two things: maximize your probability of getting a hit at every turn, and hope your opponent doesn't do the same."

"To win a game of Battleship, you need to do two things: maximize your probability of getting a hit at every turn, and hope your opponent doesn't do the same." Not exactly. You need to maximize the amount of information you get about the distribution of your opponent's ships with each shot, and distribute your own ships in such a way that it minimizes the amount of information your opponent is able to gather with theirs. And of course you need to take into account that your opponent has the same goals (the probability grid for hitting ships shown in the article of course ignores that your opponent, knowing the center is a juicier target for you, could choose to place her ships around the edges.)