Swap

The rule

After Red played the first move Blue player is asked wether she wants to swap or not, that is to invert the colors or to keep on this way. Detailled article.

Where to swap

The use of the swap rule is to force the first player to play not too good moves. Therefore it is intersting to find out what are the moves that should be swapped (the best moves), what are moves that should not be swapped (the worse moves), what are the moves for which no answer is known yet.

On every size a1, b1 and symmetrical moves are known losing moves (except 2 x 2, where b1 wins, see small boards).

The red marked hexes are to be swapped.

The blue marked hexes are not to be swapped.

The star marked hexes are average moves, so the game should be balanced with or without swap.

Hex is not strongly solved on big sizes, therefor the result of optimal play is not known for every cells.

Small Sizes

See Small boards to know which cells lead to victory with optimal play. You might however assume that you and your opponent do not play optimally, and decide to play tricky losing moves in order to trap your opponent !

Bigger Sizes

Theoritical outcome is known for a few cells (for instance a1). For the other cells, stronger players advice can give a hint on whether a move should be swapped or not. One could also try to recognize a pattern in the winning cells for small boards and extrapolate to bigger sizes.