2603

Congratulations to Maciej for crossing 2600 in 13x13 Hex! This is a first, right? No one did this before. Absolutely awesome!

Maciej has become a super grandmaster. Congratulations!

I guess you have to bee raised up in Poland in order to excel in Hex - Maciej Celuch, Daniel Sepczuk, Naked Face, and now recently Arek Kulczyck, all 2400+.

So in order to improve in Hex:

1. Eat much soup (zupa)

2. Listen to Chopin, Lady Pank, Budka Suflera, etc.

3. Watch "Ogniem i mieczem" film

4. Pronounce properly: Chszaszcz brzmi w czcinie i z tego Szebreszczyn slynie.

5. Dance Polonaise and Mazurka.

To be continued... ;-)

I have doubts that you are Norwegian :)

Does anyone know if lazyplayer is Polish?

Lazy is Italian. But I'm sure he aspires to become Polish some day, as do I. I can't pronounce that whatzis yet, but I did learn a phrase from some helpful Polish friends: Jestem dramiem z Playsite. Not bad, eh?

David, rather:  Jestem draniem z Playsite. But yes, not bad :D

I listen to a lot of Chopin, so clearly listening to Chopin will not, by itself, turn one into a good Hex player.

More seriously, I'm very curious to know what accounts for all the strong Polish Hex players.  The obvious guess is that the percentage of the Polish population who has played Hex is much higher than the similar percentage for other countries.  If this guess is correct, then what accounts for it?  Is Hex part of the school curriculum in Poland?  Do math camps in Poland place a lot of emphasis on Hex?  Or perhaps Hex is not especially popular with the Polish population at large, but there is a active Hex subculture in Poland?

(Also, I think Maciej first passed 2600 a few months ago.)

Most of the polish players honed their skills at Kurnik, a polish game site which later dropped hex.

Yes I remember Kurnik which is now PlayOk, and before that there was Playsite. I was one of the first players at Playsite, and at first I took first place and I thought I was hot fecal matter. But then came some serious players from Poland and Hungary, and I got kicked downstairs without any respect at all. I wish Gyorgy Czismadia would return. But even he would probably lose to Maciej.

???

???

???

Hmm some bug here, I am not able to post my answer :-(

???

???

This is irritating as my post is even shorter than one I posted originally (31.12.)

Okay I try to split it even more:

David:

Though listening to Chopin you have probably omitted the other music suggestions I gave in my post?! Listening to Mniej niz zero" song of Lady Pank might enhance your understanding of Hex positions where the evaluation is less less than zero.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nd3Yp4aUU7e

Daniel:

In fact I have polish mother :-) Both I and my sister speak almost fluent polish (whereas my little brother only understands). This 50 % polish ancestry has already been used by Jan Arild Teland to explain why I rather quickly made 2000+ in Hex on Gamerz.net.

Generally:

When child I did actually go to polish school for 2x3 months in 5th and 6th class. We played only Dots and boxes, Gomoku, Checkers and Chess, but no Hex :-(

But I wonder if it was actually possible to buy "Poligon" (Initial Danish name for Hex) in stores at some time back in 1990-ties? I might remember wrong, but I seem to have a vague memory of it. Maybe some  poles in here remember?

As already pointed  Kornik is probably the best explanation. Back then I had not even heard about Hex, and since I am planning to write an article which focus on Hex and Havannah I am very curious about Kornik & Hex history. Please tell me more!

Also David, this Hungarian Gyorgy Czismadia sound interesting! Any games of him available?

Gyorgy played Twixt here, not Hex. Sorry about that. There are references to him on the Net as a mathematician and 4 dan Go player. But Gabor Szabo played both Hex and Twixt. He is also from Budapest. His preference was for real time games only. He usually beat me up on Playsite and Kurnik if he had nothing better to do.

I like all kinds of music, from Chopin to the Krakau Jazz Ensemble, featured in the movie "Stormy Monday." The pop stuff is okay I guess :-)