In any of eight directions and as far as you like, until the board ends or a piece appears. There is one limitation: a queen cannot jump over pieces.
Twenty-seven is from the centre. At the edge the queen is weaker: from e1 or from the corner a1 it holds 21 squares. The gap is smaller than for other pieces, so a queen does not have to be dragged to the middle - it is strong almost anywhere. The comparison across all pieces is in the table of moves.
In the oldest form of the game this piece was not a queen at all but a counsellor - the Persian farzin, the king's advisor - and it moved a single square diagonally. Europe turned the advisor into a queen in the fifteenth century and gave it the sweeping move it has now. Chess became dramatically faster, and the new version was nicknamed "mad queen chess".
The old name survives in other languages: Russian still calls the piece ferz, from the same Persian root, and German and French call it the lady. In English notation the queen is Q.
One naming trap is worth knowing at the board: the queen is not "the king's piece" in any rule sense. It can be traded, lost or gained again, while the king can only be checkmated. Other everyday names for the pieces are covered in board setup.
The second tallest piece after the king, with a crown of points and no cross. That cross is exactly what separates the two: the king has one, the queen does not.
A set has one queen per side. A second appears when a pawn reaches the last rank and promotes - two queens at once is perfectly legal and there is no limit. How that works - pawn moves.
Exactly as it moves: it takes the square of an enemy piece and removes it from the board. There is no special capturing rule - and that is where it differs from the pawn, whose move and capture point different ways.
That is the queen's main limitation: it is powerful on an open board and helpless in a blocked one. At the start of the game, with every pawn still at home, a queen has only a handful of squares.
Next to the king, on its own colour: the white queen on d1, the black one on d8. The check is the old rule "queen on her own colour" - the white queen starts on a light square, the black queen on a dark one. If the queen and king have been swapped during setup, the colour gives it away immediately.
This is also where the names of the wings come from: the half of the board on the queen's side is the queenside, the other is the kingside. The full setup step by step - chess board setup.
In pawns a queen is counted as nine. The scale is not for exact arithmetic but for deciding what to trade for what.
| What is traded | In pawns | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Queen | 9 | the most expensive piece |
| Two rooks | 10 | slightly more than a queen |
| Rook and bishop | 8 | slightly less |
| Three knights or bishops | 9 | the same on paper |
The numbers match while the positions do not: three pieces usually beat a queen, because they work at the same time and the queen is alone. So giving up a queen for three minor pieces is often a good trade even though the count is level.
The first is bringing it out too early. The strongest piece is the one you want to play with, but in the opening a queen becomes a target: pawns and knights chase it, and every retreat costs a move while the opponent develops. The normal order is knights and bishops first, then castling, and only then the queen. How that looks in practice - the openings catalogue.
The second is stalemate in a won position. The classic: the opponent has a bare king, you bring the queen up next to it, and Black has no legal move although there is no check. The game ends in a draw on the spot, and nine pawns of material mean nothing.
The cure is technique: the queen pushes the king to the edge and the mate is delivered with the help of your own king - basic checkmates. What stalemate is and why it is a draw - stalemate in chess.
Along files, ranks and diagonals for any number of squares - like a rook and a bishop combined. It cannot jump: the first piece in the way stops the movement, though an enemy piece there can be captured.
Twenty-seven from the centre of an empty board and twenty-one from the edge or a corner. The gap is smaller than for other pieces, which is why a queen stays dangerous almost anywhere.
In the original game it was a counsellor - the Persian farzin, the king's advisor - and it moved one square diagonally. Europe turned it into a queen in the fifteenth century and gave it the long move. Russian still calls the piece ferz, from the same root.
The second tallest piece after the king, with a crown of points and no cross. The cross belongs to the king. A set has one queen per side, but a second can appear when a pawn promotes.
White on d1, Black on d8, next to the king. The rule is “queen on her own colour”: the white queen starts on a light square, the black queen on a dark one. If the colour is wrong, the king and queen have been swapped.
Nine. Two rooks are ten, a rook and a bishop eight. By that scale trading a queen for three minor pieces looks even, but in practice the three pieces are usually stronger: they work at the same time.
Yes, and more. Every pawn reaching the last rank may promote to a queen, so in theory there could be nine. The rules set no limit; what a set lacks is a second queen, and an upside-down rook is used instead.
Pairings are computed by bbpPairings, an open-source engine implementing the Dutch system by FIDE rules: score groups, floats on an odd field, colour alternation. Free to use.
The bot is constantly improved based on real tournaments. If you need a feature that isn't there yet, message the developers right inside the bot with the /support command. Many features appeared exactly because organizers asked for them, and useful ideas get added quickly.
At the board since childhood: hazy about his rating, precise about every rook he has blundered. Counts an evening as a good one if the opponent stayed to talk afterwards instead of rushing off to check with an engine. Message →
