Hexagon Strategy

Hexagon is not one of the oldest or most popular strategy board games but it nevertheless offers enough complexity to tease and entice the mind of players as well as challenging them to continually grow their understanding so as to improve performance.

As with many other simple strategy games there are great advantages of being the first player to move. That however is not to say that a first move guarantees a win every time. There are almost as many counter strategies for the player who moves second as there are attacking strategies for the first moving player.

A wide berth

It is almost inevitable that the two players' lines will meet at some point in the middle of the board and result in blocking each other from certain paths to victory. It stands to reason therefore that this is planned for from the offset by not following a single track path.

By the very nature of the shape of each position on the board there are always 2 options for moving forward however, if a player tries to create a more diagonal line to the finish it will create many more possible exits to change direction when a block situation is encountered.

Blocking

Whilst no player can avoid being blocked in some way during the game, it is foolish to embrace it too far to the point of going out of the way to block an opponent. This game does not require the employ of such tactics to be successful. There are times where one of two equally beneficial moves will be selected because of its added benefit of blocking the opponent as well as progressing itself. However these are rare and do not need to be searched for.

Many players who try to go down such a negative route will often find themselves successful in their endeavours. However no block can be impermeable and when it is broken through, the blocking player soon realizes that they have no pieces in good enough positions to get to victory before their opponent.

Watch your opponent

There is a big difference between intentional blocking and watching an opponent's moves. It is important to remember that the game is being played against another individual and equally that each person's moves will eventually have an impact on the decision making processes of the other.

By following the patterns and routes that an opponent chooses to use and take, a player will be able to adapt their game either to find the gap in the board first, or even to avoid an imminent trap.

Such tactics can sometimes be difficult to implement through a single game however the nature of Hexagon is such that opponents will often spend some time playing a number of consecutive games against each other. The more successful player over that period of time will be the one who can not only make use of the techniques they are familiar with but also learn from the way their opponent plays so as to take advantage of any weakness or habit in their approach.