Puzzles

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Solving puzzles is a very good way of becoming a stronger player. Solve as many as possible! And feel free to post your own puzzles here.

Piet Hein's puzzles

See article Piet Hein's puzzles

Claude Berge's puzzles

See article Claude Berge's puzzles

Bert Enderton

Puzzle 1

Red to play and win.

abcdefg1234567

Try it on HexWorld.

Puzzle 2

Red to play and win.

abcdefg1234567

Try it on HexWorld.

Puzzle 3

Red to play and win.

This is a very difficult puzzle whose complete solution is extremely complex.

abcdef123456

Try it on HexWorld.

Puzzle 4

Red to play and win.

abcdefg1234567

Try it on HexWorld.

Eric Demer

Despite their small size, the following five 5x5 puzzles are quite difficult: ​ They come from computer brute-force search of sparse 5x5 positions via a tablebase, specifically aiming for the hardest puzzles from such positions. ​ For each of them, the player whose turn it is has exactly 1 winning move.

Puzzle 1

Red to move.

abcde12345

Try it on HexWorld.

Puzzle 2

Blue to move.

abcde12345

Try it on HexWorld.

Puzzle 3

Blue to move.

abcde12345

Try it on HexWorld.

Puzzle 4

Red to move.

abcde12345

Try it on HexWorld.

Puzzle 5

Red to move.

abcde12345

Try it on HexWorld.


The next two puzzles are based on positions from games.

Puzzle 6

Red to play and win.

abcdef123456

Try it on HexWorld.

Puzzle 7

Blue to play and win.

abcdefg1234567

Try it on HexWorld.

Other

Eric Demer also has a worst-move puzzle.

Other authors

Puzzle 1

By John Tromp. Blue to play and win.

abcdefghij12345678910

Try it on HexWorld.

Puzzle 2

By lazyplayer. Blue to play and win.

abcdefg1234567

Try it on HexWorld.

Puzzle 3

By David J Bush. Taken from a game on Playsite in 2003. Red to play and win.

abcdefghij12345678910

Try it on HexWorld.

Source: this Little Golem forum thread.

Puzzle 4

Designed by Door1, helped by David J Bush. Inspired by a game on Kurnik in May 2005. Blue to play and win.

abcdefghij12345678910

Try it on HexWorld.

Source: this Little Golem forum thread.

Puzzle 5

By Ryan B. Hayward. Red to play and win.

abcdef123456

Try it on HexWorld.

Note that this position is equivalent to the position with the pieces at a5 and a6 removed. This could arise in response to the winning opening move a4.

Source: Ryan B. Hayward, "A puzzling Hex primer" (https://webdocs.cs.ualberta.ca/~hayward/papers/puzzlingHexPrimer.pdf).

Puzzle 6

By Hexanna. Red to play and win.

abcdefghijklm12345678910111213

Try it on HexWorld.

See also

Cameron Browne offers a lot of original puzzles in his book Hex Strategy Making the Right Connections

Matthew Seymour has created a website with 500 interactive Hex puzzles at http://www.mseymour.ca/hex_puzzle/hexpuzzle.html

Ryan Hayward and Bjarne Toft include several sets of puzzles in their book Hex: The Full Story, including 49 puzzles originally published in Politiken, 28 unpublished puzzles by Jens Lindhard, 99 puzzles by Henderson, and the 4 puzzles by Bert Enderton.