HenkinSchultz partner wins second international championship in strategy game

From a young age, Joey Schultz has been an intensely competitive person. Whether he was playing checkers with his grandma or competing with his older brother, he always felt the need to win — and in a dominating manner.

“It just has something to do with winning in a competition where you’re both trying hard,” Schultz said. “It’s just something ingrained in me where that’s a good thing and I try to do it.”

Schultz, a partner in advertising agency HenkinSchultz, has channeled his competitive energy into Hive, a strategy game that made him an international champion for the second time late last year.

Schultz, who works on audio and video for the agency, describes Hive as similar to chess, although it doesn’t have a physical board. Each player gets 11 hexagonal pieces — three ants, two spiders, two beetles, three grasshoppers and one queen bee. 

Each piece has different rules for how it can move, and the game can be played on any flat surface. With no setup required, the game begins once the first piece is set down. The object of the game is to completely surround the other player’s queen bee while protecting your own. 

Schultz first played Hive with a friend around 2005, playing casually for a few more years. About a decade ago, he first competed in the international tournament run by Hive publisher Gen42 Games. When his first competitive attempt didn’t go well, he put aside the game for a few years until 2015, when he decided to re-enter the tournament and put more effort into winning. 

He got better with each passing year, eventually winning the international tournament, which is conducted online, in 2017. He placed second in 2018 and 2019, reclaiming the crown last year. 

To do so, he outlasted 98 competitors from around the world, including Russia, Australia and Brazil. His tournament win came after a four-game championship round that lasted more than six hours, beating a two-time reigning champion from Chile.

“The last two years where I got second place were pretty tough because I poured a lot of energy into it,” Schultz said. “So to win it feels good because when you pour that much energy into something, it’s going to be a great success or a gigantic failure. So I guess it’s just good that it wasn’t a huge failure.”

The tournament is almost a yearlong endeavor, as it starts in the spring and lasts until the end of the year. Competitors have to schedule their own matches, and Schultz said he typically plays two or three per week during the season.

When he isn’t competing on a high level, he still plays Hive, chess and other tactical games for fun in his free time.

Schultz is also a devout practitioner of Judo and applies its principles to his Hive playing style. He competes using the game name “Jewdoka.”

He even wrote a book last year, “The Canon of Hive: Groundwork,” that discusses the intricacies of the game and how he found success with it. 

It earned praised from the game’s creator, John Yianni. “I’m very impressed. … It’s such a joy reading the depth you have gone into.” The book also received a distinguished MusiChess Award, which celebrates music, chess and mind sports.

With second-place finishes sandwiched between his two championships, Schultz is at the peak of his Hive success and doesn’t plan to slow down anytime soon. At the very least, it will continue to fuel his competitive nature that has driven him to succeed in Hive and his everyday life. 

“It’s just something that’s just always built up inside me where it’s just like, I have to compete,” he said. “I don’t like to say it like this, but it always feels good to dominate in a way, and that’s what I can do in Hive.”