Your problem doesn't show on the code given I'm guessing your code was too long. I would think about creating an array of buttons that you could iterate through and create using Loops. I didn't here but if I had a 100 I would just for int i=0 i<100; i++ b[i]=new JButton("-") b[i].addAct….. and so on and so forth. As to the logic again I can't help because I can't see your code. I will say though everytime I see a Tic tac toe program in java they use bitwise operators. I am still unable to understand bitwise operators so I can't help there but if you can then that's the way I would go in figuring out wins and loses.
import javax.swing.*;
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
public class Ship extends JPanel{
myActionListener mal=new myActionListener();
Ship(){
JButton[] bt=new JButton[3];
bt[0]=new JButton("-");
bt[1]=new JButton("-");
bt[2]=new JButton("-");
bt[0].addActionListener(mal);
bt[1].addActionListener(mal);
bt[2].addActionListener(mal);

setLayout(new FlowLayout());
add(bt[0]);
add(bt[1]);
add(bt[2]);

}
public static void main(String[] args){
JFrame jf=new JFrame();
jf.setDefaultCloseOperation
(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
Ship s=new Ship();
jf.add(s);
jf.pack();
jf.setVisible(true);

}
class myActionListener implements ActionListener{
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent ae){
JButton jbs=(JButton)ae.getSource();
if (jbs.getText().equals("-"))
jbs.setText("X");
else if(jbs.getText().equals("X"))
jbs.setText("Y");
else
jbs.setText("X");

}
}
}

all I got to say about that is: WOW