page_title: Hex (board game)
section_title: Published games
hierarchical_section_title: Hex (board game) / History / Published games
caption_attribution_description: Hex sur la table verte
context_page_description: Hex is a strategy board game for two players played on a hexagonal grid, theoretically of any size and several possible shapes, but traditionally as an 11×11 rhombus. Players alternate placing markers or stones on unoccupied spaces in an attempt to link their opposite sides of the board in an unbroken chain. One player must win; there are no draws. The game has deep strategy, sharp tactics and a profound mathematical underpinning related to the Brouwer fixed-point theorem. It was invented in the 1940s independently by two mathematicians, Piet Hein and John Nash. The game was first marketed as a board game in Denmark under the name Con-tac-tix, and Parker Brothers marketed a version of it in 1952 called Hex; they are no longer in production. Hex can also be played with paper and pencil on hexagonally ruled graph paper.
  Hex-related research is current in the areas of topology, graph and matroid theory, combinatorics, game theory and artificial intelligence.
context_section_description: The game was invented by the Danish mathematician Piet Hein, who introduced it in 1942 at the Niels Bohr Institute. Although Hein called it Con-tac-tix, it became known in Denmark under the name Polygon due to an article by Hein in the 26 December 1942 edition of the Danish newspaper Politiken, the first published description of the game, in which he used that name. The game was independently re-invented in 1948 by the mathematician John Nash at Princeton University. According to Martin Gardner, who featured Hex in his July 1957 Mathematical Games column, Nash's fellow players called the game either Nash or John, with the latter name referring to the fact that the game could be played on hexagonal bathroom tiles. In 1952, Parker Brothers marketed a version. They called their version "Hex" and the name stuck. Parker Brothers also sold a version under the "Con-tac-tix" name in 1968. Hex was also issued as one of the games in the 1974 3M Paper Games Series; the game contained a 5½ × 8½ inch 50-sheet pad of ruled hex grids.
caption: A Parker Brothers edition of the game
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