Hex
Join your two edges with a single chain; Hex never ends in a draw.
How to play
If you are Red, you try to join the two red-striped edges of the board; if you are Blue, the two blue-striped edges. Red moves first. When it's your turn, tap an empty hexagon and your stone goes there. Stones are never captured and never move. Whoever first joins their two edges with an unbroken chain of stones wins, and the winning chain lights up on the board. On Medium and Hard and in two-player games, Blue may say Swap once, right after Red's first stone, and take that stone over.
How to play Hex: a guide to Hex against the computer
Hex is a two-player connection game played on a board of hexagons: you take turns placing stones, and whoever first joins their own two edges with an unbroken chain wins. No captures, no luck, no draws. On CetinsGame you can play Hex against the computer on three levels and three board sizes, or with a friend on the same device. The Brain points you win go to the Hex leaderboard; the game has its own statistics and 8 badges.
Goal
The board is shaped like a rhombus; two opposite edges are striped red and the other two blue. Red tries to join the two red edges, Blue the two blue edges. Red moves first. The chain doesn't have to be straight; it can bend and even double back, as long as it is unbroken. The only way to cut your opponent's chain is to build your own, which is why every game has a winner.
How to play
When it's your turn, tap an empty hexagon and your stone goes there. A small dot marks the last stone placed, and the counter at the top shows the move number. Stones are never captured and never move.
On a phone held upright the board may be turned so it fits larger. That is why the game names colours, not directions: the line at the bottom says "Your turn: connect the two red edges". When someone completes their chain, the winning chain glows gold and the game ends. On a keyboard, Ctrl+Z undoes your last move and Esc pauses the game.
The swap rule
Red, who places the first stone, has a big advantage. To balance it, the swap rule is on for Medium and Hard and in Two players (off on Easy). After Red's first stone, a Swap button appears on Blue's turn. Press it and the red stone is removed, a blue stone appears on the hexagon mirrored across the board's diagonal, and it is Red's turn again: the first stone is now yours. The swap is only possible at that moment, and only once. When the computer is Blue, it swaps if your first stone is not on an edge, so as Red, putting your first stone right in the centre isn't always a good idea.
Modes, levels and boards
- Learn: 5 steps on a small 5×5 board: the goal, the bridge, completing a chain, why there are no draws, and the swap rule. You try each step on the board yourself.
- Against the computer: Easy has the swap rule off and makes frequent mistakes; Medium builds good connections; Hard uses bridges skilfully. The board can be 7×7, 9×9 or 11×11.
- First move: You, Computer or Take turns. Whoever moves first plays Red.
- Two players: you take turns on the same screen; the swap rule is on.
Brain points and badges
Every game you win against the computer earns Brain points: Easy 10, Medium 25, Hard 50. Bigger boards pay more: ×1 on 7×7, ×1.5 on 9×9, ×2 on 11×11. Beating Hard on 11×11, for example, is worth 100 points. Win a rematch and the points are doubled; a game where you used Undo gives no points, and losing never takes points away. Your total goes to the Hex leaderboard.
The Badges button on the game screen shows all 8 badges: Learned (finish the tutorial), Easy, Medium and Hard (beat that level), Three in a row (beat the computer 3 times in a row), Master hunter (beat Hard 5 times), With a friend (finish 5 games on the same screen) and Big board (beat Hard on 11×11).
Help
- What would a master play? In a game against the computer it shows on the board the move the Hard level would choose right now; at the right moment it may suggest a swap. 3 per game; the first is free, the rest come with an optional ad.
- Undo: takes back your last move. If you use it against the computer, that game gives no points.
- Rematch: after a game you lost, with an optional ad; win it and your points are doubled.
- Leave the game: from the pause menu; the game counts as lost.
Strategy
In Hex what matters is connection, not the number of stones. The centre is close to both of your edges, which makes it the most valuable area. Instead of lining stones up side by side, build bridges: two stones with two shared empty neighbours stay connected even if your opponent takes one of them. When your opponent enters your bridge, take the other hexagon without a second thought.
Blocking right next to an enemy stone is usually weak; it is easy to walk around. Block a little further away, in front of the path it wants to take. Remember that every stone that cuts your opponent's path is also part of your own chain: a good defensive move both blocks and connects. Near the edge, if a stone one row in has two empty edge hexagons in front of it, it is already connected; don't rush, close a weaker spot elsewhere.
Tips
- Put your first stones near the centre; a central stone reaches both edges easily.
- Build bridges instead of lining stones up; you advance two rows in one move.
- When your opponent enters your bridge, take the other hexagon at once.
- Block your opponent a little ahead of their path, not right next to their stone.
- Make your defensive moves in places that also link to your own chain.
- As Red with the swap rule on, don't put your first stone dead centre; Medium and Hard will swap it.
- When you're stuck, use "What would a master play?" to see the Hard move and think about why.
Hex: the connection game mathematicians love
Hex is a two-player connection game played on a rhombus-shaped board of hexagons. It was invented in 1942 by a Danish mathematician and poet and first appeared in a newspaper. The rule fits in one sentence, yet the game kept mathematicians busy for years: it has been proven that Hex can never end in a draw and that the first player has a winning strategy. The Mind games collection on our site also has other thinking games such as Reversi, Go, Chess, Dama and Mangala.
- Where and when
- Denmark, 1942; reinvented a few years later in the USA
- Board
- A rhombus of hexagons; 7×7, 9×9, 11×11 in our game
- Goal
- Join your own two edges with an unbroken chain
- Draws
- Impossible; proven mathematically
- Swap rule
- After the first stone, Blue may take it over once
- In our game
- Three levels, two players, 8 badges, its own leaderboard
History
Hex was invented in 1942 by a Danish mathematician and poet, and it first appeared in a newspaper. A few years later, in the United States, a young mathematics student came up with the same game again without knowing about it. That two people reached the same game independently, in two different places, shows how natural and simple the idea is: a board of hexagons, two colours and the wish to join two edges.
A game without draws
Hex is most famous for never ending in a draw, and this has been proven mathematically. The intuition is simple: if on a full board Red has not joined its two edges, the blue stones that stopped it form a wall running from one side of the board to the other, and that wall is Blue's winning chain. The hexagons play a big part: each hexagon shares a full side with its neighbours, so unlike a square grid there are no neighbours that touch only at a corner, leaving it unclear whether they are connected.
A proven but unknown path
Mathematicians also proved that the first player always has a winning strategy in Hex. The idea of the proof can be told like this: if the second player always had a winning strategy, the first player could place one stone at random and then follow that strategy themselves; in Hex an extra stone never hurts. This contradiction shows that the first player has a way to win, but it doesn't say what that way is. On large boards it is still unknown today, which is why the game stays interesting.
The swap rule: one cuts, the other chooses
Because the first player's advantage is known, tournaments use the swap rule. The idea is like two people sharing a cake: one cuts, the other picks a slice. The one who cuts tries to cut fairly; in Hex, Red likewise tries to place the first stone neither too strongly nor too weakly, because if Blue likes it, Blue takes it. This small rule turns the first move from an advantage into a puzzle of its own.
In our game
On CetinsGame, Hex is a game of its own; it sits in the site's Mind games collection next to other thinking games such as Reversi, Go, Dots and Boxes, Tower of Hanoi, Chess, Dama and Mangala. The History card on the game screen sums up the facts above, and the Learn section teaches the rules by having you try them on the board. The absence of draws and the swap rule are good topics for discussion in thinking games classes; since there are no interstitial ads in Two players mode, the game can be played comfortably on a classroom smartboard.
How Hex was made
Hex is one of the classic games played in Turkish schools in the Mind and Intelligence Games course. We built these games with a classroom in mind: a teacher opens the game on the smart board, explains it in a few minutes, and the students carry on at home or on a phone. At first we put five games into a single package; because each has its own rules, rhythm and way people look for it, we later turned them into separate games. Each one has its own page, its own leaderboard and its own badges.
Hex has a one-sentence rule: join your two edges with an unbroken chain. This game can never end in a draw; when the board is full, someone has always won. That works wonderfully in class, because it makes students ask why a draw is impossible. We offer 7×7, 9×9 and 11×11 boards: the small one is a lesson game of a few minutes, the large one a real strategy match.
Because moving first is a big advantage, we added the swap rule: after the first stone is placed, the second player may take that stone as their own. So the first player avoids an overly strong opening. The board can rotate to fit both landscape and portrait screens, so the instructions never say "right" or "top"; they name the edges by colour instead: "join the two red edges". The computer thinks with a method that plays thousands of random games and picks the most promising move. In bot matches, each level beat the one below it in almost every game.
Every game has a 5-step Learn mode that you try on the board itself: the rules are learned by tapping, not by reading. Two players can also play on the same screen, so two students can face each other on one tablet in class. Learn mode and two-player games never show ads. The board, pieces and sounds were all made with code; the game is playable in seven languages, and every fact on the history card was checked against its source. Hex was released as version 1.0 on 14 October 2026.
Frequently asked questions
What is a bridge in Hex?
Two stones with two shared empty neighbours between them. If your opponent plays in one of those hexagons, you play in the other and your stones stay connected. The second step of Learn lets you try a bridge on the board.
When does the Swap button appear?
If the swap rule is on (Medium, Hard and Two players), it appears on Blue's turn right after Red's first stone. It can be used once; after the second move it disappears.
Why did the stone move somewhere else after a swap?
It moves to the hexagon mirrored across the board's diagonal. The mirror turns the red edges into the blue edges, so the stone is worth the same to Blue.
Why did the computer swap my first stone?
When Medium or Hard is Blue, it swaps if Red's first stone is not on an edge. If you don't want a swap, place your first stone closer to an edge, in a more modest spot.
Why did the board turn?
On an upright screen the board may be turned 90 degrees so it fits larger. The rules don't change: Red still joins the red-striped edges and Blue the blue-striped ones.
Which board size should I choose?
7×7 is quick and good for learning. 9×9 and 11×11 take longer and need more planning; they also pay 1.5 and 2 times the points.
Can the Hard computer be beaten?
Yes. Hard is strong and uses bridges well, but it isn't perfect. Holding the centre, building bridges and blocking from a distance is the best way.
What happens if I use Undo?
Against the computer Undo is allowed, but that game gives no Brain points. In two-player games there are no points, so it makes no difference.
How many badges does Hex have?
8: Learned, Easy, Medium, Hard, Three in a row, Master hunter, With a friend and Big board. The Badges button on the game screen shows which ones you have and how to earn the rest.
Is Hex free?
Yes. No download or account needed; it plays right in your browser. Watching an ad for a hint is always your choice.
Will I lose my progress?
Your progress is saved automatically on this device. Sign in and it moves to your account, so you can continue on any device.
Can I play on my phone?
Yes. The game opens full screen on phones; tap the X in the corner to exit. On iPhone use "Add to Home Screen" to play it like an app.
Can I play Hex offline?
Yes. A game you have opened once is stored on your phone or computer and opens without internet. Leaderboards and cloud saves need a connection.
Which languages are available?
Turkish, English, Spanish, Portuguese, German, French and Russian.
Comments
Sign in to write a comment.
No comments yet. Be the first.
