Chess for Beginners

How to Move the Pieces in Chess:

How to Move the Queen in Chess

We are going to cover how to move the queen in chess, but first, let’s first understand the queen in her righteousness.

The midevil Queen had tremendous power over the kingdom. Standing by the side of the King, the queen had the ability to do as she pleased. In the game of chess, her ability to move in any direction as many spaces as she pleases reflects this.  

How to Move a Queen in Chess

The queen is free to reign as she pleases. She can move in any direction, anyway she chooses. The queen is considered a combination of the rook and the bishop, being able to move both diagonally and horizontally as many spaces as are available on the chessboard.

When learning how to play chess, it is essential to master your queen’s full range of abilities.  Given this wide range of movement, make no mistake, this makes the queen the most powerful piece on the board. 

How to Move the Queen in Chess

1. The queen can move forward, backward, side to side, and diagonal as many open squares as are available.
2. The queen can capture any enemy piece that stands within her range of attack.
3. In the photo below, the queen could attack any of the dark pieces, as they are all within her range of attack.

The True Power of the Queen in Chess

Below is a photo from a game I recently played. As you can see, with just the queen alone (and one pawn), I was able to capture both knights, a rook, a bishop, and 4 pawns, without even moving any of my other high ranking chess pieces or having any of my chess pieces captured!          

The player names have been blurred out. The pieces captured are on the right.

  Another example is in the video below (I didn’t now how to record videos on my screen at the time when playing the game above).   https://youtu.be/sNFkbOMyyAo   You can read more about the chess match here.  

Now, this doesn’t mean you can always beat an opponent with a queen alone, as many players know how to defend this, but it does show just how powerful a queen can be to an unaware opponent when used correctly.  

You can also see how effective and powerful the queen can be from a match in which a 15 move checkmate was achieved using the rook and the queen.  

Notes About The Queen & How To Move The Queen In Chess

1. Whenever a pawn reaches the opposite side of the chessboard, it is always best to promote the pawn to a queen.
2. Think of the queen as a combination of the bishop and the rook.
3. The queen is an essential piece for the 2 move checkmate (Fool’s Mate), the 3 move checkmate, and the 4 move checkmate (known as “Scholar’s Mate”)
4. A queen has a value of “9”, the highest valued piece on the board.

Next:

Learn How To Move The King In Chess