Live Hex Tournament

There's going to be a live Hex tournament hosted by the Hex Discord, this January. We plan on making it a monthly affair. Please join if you're interested.

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2995298/hex-monthly-tournament-announcement

It's online, not live.

It's on ig game center, which is always live. It's on Jan. 21 and it will end on Jan. 21. Each round will take about an hour, perhaps less. The number of rounds depends on how many will sign up.

I guess Tasmanian Devil is one of those old fashioned people (like myself) who still own a physical body and hence have a different definition of 'live'. ;-)

He he, indeed.

Indeed. "Live" means face-to-face to me, too.

For online tournaments as the one advertised here, I prefer the term "real time".

still undecided on whether to join. i'll keep it in mind

Physical bodies are so outré.

I will try to participate in the next one, if indeed hosted monthly. On Jan 21. I'm busy.

Go physical body!

The next one will take place at 17:00 UTC, on February 18.

You can sign up here

Registered :)

The next one will take place at 17:00 UTC, on March 18.

You can sign up here

Maciej Celuch will be participating this month, if that is an incentive to any of you ;)

Sorry, the sign up link I posted was not what I intended. Here a link that lets you see the actual tournament page and who is participating without creating an account. Also I'd like to reiterate that you don't need to create an account if you don't want to. If you just show up to igGameCenter before the tournament starts, you can personally ask to enter.

Thank you for organizing this tournament. Good games and a lot of fun. Do we have any lg equivalents from tournament here?

Thank you for coming! What exactly do you mean by "LG equivalents from tournament here"?

lg players, who played in the tournament

People that have played in the monthly that also play on LG are, me, comonoid, wurfmaul, and you.

Next one is April 15.

register here

I'm going to stop making these monthly posts. If you'd like to join the latest tournament, you can check out the Challonge community page. The rules, date, and time will be in the information for the tournament.

What is the future of the HEX game?
Is it popular right now? Or maybe the popularity of this game is declining?
Which countries have the largest communities that play this game?
Are there live tournaments? (I found on youtube several videos from HEX live tournaments in France.)
Does this website (and little golem) have the strongest and largest HEX community?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvJ1tBP ... C3%B9piter

It seems the game was more popular in 2007, when the Little Golem 13x13 championship #15 had 200 participants. The last edition #54 had only 59 participants. (Yes, more tournament types and board sizes have been added since 2007, but I don't think this explains all. Also, concentrating lots of players in one tournament is what matters, in my opinion.)

Poland must be the country with by far the largest number of (skilled) hex players. Until June 2008 (before I knew hex), the Polish server Kurnik aka PlayOK was a breeding ground for strong players. In December 2017, hex was reintroduced, but while it was very active for a few days at least, it gradually died down.

After Poland, the strongest countries would probably be the USA and Canada, based on what I have seen online.

"Hex tournament in Paris" from 2015
The yearly tournaments in France are, I think, tied to Le Salon Culture et Jeux Mathématiques. I don't know if the tournament took place this year. The CIJM was supposed to give an introduction to hex at least, it seems.

See also the HexWiki on hex clubs for more over the board activity. This list might be quite incomplete. But anyway, it doesn't seem like there's a lot.

BoardGameArena(BGA) has more hex players than Little Golem(LG), but LG has more hex specialists.
I'd say the top 5 players active in online hex tournaments in 2023 are Arek Kulczycki, brzytwa, Daniel Sepczuk, lazyplayer and Maciej Celuch. Of these, Arek, Daniel and lazyplayer play on LG but don't play on BGA, to my knowledge. brzytwa plays on both. Maciej Celuch, probably the most prestigious player of all, was last active on LG in 2018, and played a little on BGA recently (won the MSO Grand Prix 2023 • Hex 14x14).

About the future, who knows? Some people and some others (no offense!) put in extraordinary work. Also, the discord server (linked elsewhere in this forum) is quite active, considering it's about hex. I hope the yearly MSO Grand Prix, Mason's monthly hex tournament (sign up for #7 which is on saturday), and BGA's Arena mode will grow (I'm not sure if changing the board size from 11x11 to 14x14 was a step in the right direction though I voted for it), and I hope participation in LG's championships will at least stop falling (will the future ones be double round robin, like the current 11x11 one? That could be bad).