See also the game of Hex. I was introduced to it by Martin Gardner's 1957 column in Scientific American[1]. As far as I know, these columns are not available fr

See also the game of Hex. I was introduced to it by Martin Gardner's 1957 column in Scientific American[1]. As far as I know, these columns are not available free online from Scientific American. However, there is an excellent description of the game and its properties by Thomas Maarup available[2], his Thesis on it is at [3]. Like the cited game Influence, the rules of Hex are very simple and although it is easily proven that in Hex the first player has a winning strategy available, this strategy is unknown. The game was first invented by Piet Hein in 1942 and was independently reinvented in 1949 by John Nash while a graduate student at Princeton University. There is a recent book on Hex by Ryan B. Hayward and Bjarne Toft, published by CRC Press [4]. Before someone asks, I didn't read Martin Gardner's column in 1957, but I was old enough to read it in 1963 as a child. I became fascinated with Mathematical Recreations monthly columns that year, and at the library I eventually read every one of the Mathematical Recreations columns he wrote for the magazine (over 300). [1] Martin Gardner. Mathematical Games—Concerning the game of Hex, which may be played on the tiles of the bathroom floor. Scientific American, 197:145–150, 1957 [2] https://maarup.net/thomas/hex/ https://maarup.net/thomas/hex/ [3] Thomas Maarup (2005 Thesis) https://maarup.net/thomas/hex/hex3.pdf https://maarup.net/thomas/hex/hex3.pdf [4] https://www.routledge.com/Hex-The-Full-Story/Hayward-Toft/p/book/9780367144227 https://www.routledge.com/Hex-The-Full-Story/Hayward-Toft/p/...