Con of the North 2026
22 February 2026
Greetings Hive fans, and welcome to my first blog post!
Last weekend was the Con of the North 2026 gaming convention in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The con had outgrown its previous venue, so this year it moved to the DoubleTree Hotel in Bloomington. It was three days of gaming fun with a total of seven Hive events.
Thanks to John Sandahl, aka Apolloq, who held the position of Hive host for the weekend, and also to Bill Nara from the Chess & Strategy Game Association. The CSGA is an after-school program at local middle and high schools that plays multiple games, including Chess and Hive. For two days, we shared a gaming room with Bill and his group. THANKS Bill!
Five of the events were training events with different subjects highlighted.
The subjects were:
An Introduction to Hive
What is the Goal?
Qualifying for the Win
Rings are Bad, or Are They?
Defending Your Queen.
On Saturday afternoon, six players played in the tournament. Based on the number of players, we decided to play a double-round robin, with each player playing every other player two games, one as White and one as Black.
It was a pleasure to have three of the top Hive players in the world attend!
Stepan Opalev (aka stepanzo), Alex Norman (aka Cavaliers16), and Ben Nanda (aka rizeagain) all participated! Dennis Lee and Amy Lamb, both of whom learned of Hive last year at the Con, also played.
Here were the results:
Round 1
Ben Nanda 2 Randy Ingersoll 0
Stepan Opalev 2 Amy Lamb 0
Alex Norman 2 Dennis Lee 0
Round 2
Randy Ingersoll 2 Amy Lamb 0
Stepan Opalev 2 Dennis Lee 0
Alex Norman 1 Ben Nanda 1 (both games were drawn)
Round 3
Alex Norman 2 Stepan Opalev 0
Ben Nanda 2 Amy Lamb 0
Randy Ingersoll 2 Dennis Lee 0
Round 4
Alex Norman 2 Amy Lamb 0
Stepan Opalev 2 Randy Ingersoll 0
Ben Nanda 2 Dennis Lee 0
Round 5
Alex Norman 2 Randy Ingersoll 0
Dennis Lee 1 Amy Lamb 0
Stepan Opalev 1.5 Ben Nanda 0.5
The final results:
Alex Norman 9/10
Stepan Opalev 7.5/10
Ben Nanda 7.5/10
Randy Ingersoll 4/10
Dennis Lee 1/9
Amy Lamb 0/9
Congratulations to Alex Norman aka Cavaliers16 the 2026 Hive Champion at the Con of the North.
Please join us next year. The Con of the North 2027 will be held Friday to Sunday, February 12th to the 14th.
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