Is looking at your oppenets past Battleboat games cheating?

My short opinion: no

My longer opinion: I think of it like football coachs looking at the other teams past games. Things you can learn from looking at your oppenets past games:

1) How they setup the board - After looking at a few games, you can usually tell if the person likes to place boats around the edge, maybe 4 pieces near one side with the 5th on the opposent side. Maybe they have a habit of putting all the pieces next to each other, or maybe never have any pieces touching - all good tips to help play against the person.

2) How they look for ships. If their first shot is always A1, and the B2, and then C3, etc... well then you know exactly where you can put boats so your oppenet will take a long time to hit any of your ships.

So my suggestions:

1) Use Random setup. It's cool that BrainKing now has this, so use Random - and if you want then change 1 or 2 of the boats.

2) NEVER use saved boards. OK, you can possible use some saved boards, but be warned not to use the same board very often.

3) Never look for your opponenets boats the same way. If you always use the same searching pattern, they can easly place their boats off of your pattern.

Personally I have not used the option to look at opponenets games for a couple of years now - when i was back on IYT and had more time, but if I had more time - I personally believe it is just a way to improve yourself to study up on your opponenets past games.

What do others think?