Miai

Miai is a Japanese term taken from Go, which is also very useful in Hex. It means that a player has two different options for achieving a specific goal, usually connecting two groups of pieces.

The most basic example is the bridge as seen below, where the starred cells are said to be miai; if Blue plays at one of them, Red secures his connection by playing at the other.

R4 C4 Vb2 Vc3 Sb3 Sc2