How to play Queens

01 / The essentials

Queens rules

• Place exactly one queen in every row, every column, and every color region.
• Queens cannot touch, including diagonally. Mark cells that cannot contain a queen with an X.
• A queen does not attack along an entire diagonal: two queens farther apart on the same diagonal can be legal. This is different from the chess eight-queens problem.

02 / Build the habit

Queens strategy

Find the smallest choice

Scan for a row, column, or region with only one legal cell. Place that queen, then remove its row, column, region, and neighboring cells from consideration. Recount after every placement.

Look for a region lock

If every remaining cell of a color is in one row, that row must contain that color’s queen. Exclude other colors from the row. The same reasoning works for columns, and in reverse when a row can only use one color.

Reserve rows and columns

If two regions can only use the same two rows, their two queens occupy those rows in some order. Other regions cannot use either row. Count available rows before trying a speculative queen.

04 / Put it into practice

A Queens practice plan

1. Solve an easy board without a timer target. Explain each queen placement using a row, column, color, or touching rule.
2. On the next board, deliberately find a region lock before opening a hint. After the hint, explain which candidates it removes.
3. Replay a difficult board, then try an unfamiliar one at the same difficulty. Compare mistakes and hint use before comparing times.

A common mistake

Do not cross out an entire diagonal as in chess. Also avoid treating an X as evidence unless you can still explain why that cell is impossible.

Can I practice more than one Queens puzzle?

Yes. Open Practice for the archive, or Generated for another board. Guest practice is available; daily challenges require an account. This is an independent trainer, not LinkedIn’s official daily game.