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Hex, Inside and Out: the Full Story by Ryan B. Hayward with Bjarne Toft

James B.'s review for the 510 Club | May 2025

 

A vacation from 510 to 519 for this month's pick, but I'm sure regular readers in the 510 club will enjoy these books!

Hex: The Full Story is a wonderful book that forms a great introduction to game of Hex. The book provides the history and evolution of the game, but also dives into an analysis of the game and similar games. The history of Hex, with both Piet Hein and John Nash claiming to have invented it, is presented in a factual and accurate way leaving you as the reader to draw your own conclusion.

Examples of Hex games and puzzles are presented. Like Chess, Go, Hive and other games, this requires a notation system. It is easy to follow, but to fully appreciate some of the game plays and puzzles it would be handy to have a game board to play along with.

One slight frustration with Hex: The Full Story is that the figures sometimes appear well before (or after) they are referenced in the text.

If you enjoy puzzles or like games of logic and strategy, learning Hex would be highly recommended and starting with this book is a great way to learn.   

Additionally, I'd recommend a second book called Hex: A playful introduction by the same author. It is a much shorter book the focuses on the game play and strategy. The book is concise and easy to read, though I noticed there are a couple of mistakes in the notation.

 

Editor's note: For those in Christchurch, these books link in well with the upcoming Tabletop Tūranga Board Game Festival, where Mathateca will be running an all day stand teaching the mathematical game of Hex, plus a round robin tournament in the afternoon of Saturday June 7th (plus, we'll be doing the maths of Mancala on Sunday June 8th). Come say hi, borrow the library copies of these books, and put your newfound Hex skills to the test!

 

 

WHAT IS THE 510 CLUB?

The 510 Club is named after the Dewey Decimal classification for Mathematics. It is a book recommendation project facilitated by Mathateca in collaboration with Christchurch MathsJam. Each month we feature a mathematical book recommendation, whether that’s a novel, articles / essays, a puzzle book, textbook, biography... just as long as it features maths in some way. Read the above book at your leisure then feel free to comment your thoughts below, or come along to the following Christchurch MathsJam sessions to join in an informal maths/book chat with the reviewer.

We're always looking for suggestions! If you're interested in contributing a book rec one month, please email christchurch@mathsjam.com to sign up.