Invented by Danish poet and mathematician Piet Hein in 1942,
while he was tried to solve the famous four-color theorem of topology.
The Hax was independently created by the mathematician John Nash.
The game became popular in Denmark under the name Polygon.
Albert Einstein kept the game on a shelf in his study.
Rules
Hex is a two player strategy game played on a NxN rhombus of hexagons.
On each turn, each player drop one friendly stone in an empty cell.
The first player is to form a unbroken chain of stones that connects the top to the bottom,
while the second player attempts to form an unbroken chain of her stones
connecting the left side and the right.
The player to move first has a huge (winning) advantage if he is allowed to make a strong opening play.
An additional rule is often used to reduce this first move advantage:
The player to move second has the choice of swapping colors, effectively stealing the first player's move.
Strategy
A game can never end in a tie, a fact found by Nash: the only way to prevent your opponent from forming a connecting path is to form a path yourself.
