Learn The Queen Moves For Chess

After the pawns, the minor pieces and the Rooks have been placed on the board there are two home rank spots remaining. One for the Queen and one for the King. But which is which?

The easiest way to remember is to keep in mind the old maxim Queen on her color. That means that the White Queen always starts on d1 which is a light square. The Black Queen always begins the game on d8 which is a dark square.

Remember the corner square nearest to your right hand must be a light square. This square is h1 if you're playing with White, a8 if you're playing with Black. Okay let's see how the Queen moves.

As I said earlier, the Queen enjoys a combination of the power of two other chess pieces. Those two pieces are the Rook and the Bishop. This means she has unlimited freedom of movement along diagonals, ranks and files.

This ability to move diagonally and orthogonally (straight) excepting blockades gives the Queen unrivalled mobility. She cannot however move like the Knight. That would have made her even more deadly!

Even so when positioned in one of the four center squares where she has maximum mobility, she actually controls nearly half the board! This is phenomenal power.

A common theme in chess is the cohesion and interaction of a number of pieces working together against the enemy. This often involves a Queen and a minor piece.

Queens work well with Bishops. One of the reasons for this is that a Bishop is a long range piece and can support attacks from any distance. This can be up close or the other side of the board.





Capablanca once observed that even though a Bishop is often stronger than a Knight, a Queen and Knight trumps a Queen and Bishop.

His reasons for holding this opinion was that the Bishop's move could only mimic the Queen. But because of the Knight's unique move, he can reach squares that the Queen could not giving this pair an added dimension.

As touched on earlier, it's not a good idea to send your Queen straight into the action in the opening moves. With the board chocoblock full of enemy pieces, ranks 4-8 are fraught with danger for your lady.

Better to bide your time with the Queen. Wrap her up in cotton wool early on. Your Knights and Bishops will lock horns with their counterparts in the early exchanges. As the smoke clears in the late middlegame, your Rooks and Queen will start to feature more and more in the game.

Of course every game is different and these are just general principles. If it makes sense to bring your Queen into the attack after 8-10 moves because a material gain or chance for a mating attack becomes available then naturally you should go for it. You just have to recognize those occasional circumstances when it makes sense to eschew the normal principles.