The Queen: Its Power Emanates from Versatility
Place it on any square on the board and it's always ready for action. This is how effective and powerful a queen piece in chess is. However, without knowing its basic moves and maneuver strategies a queen will prove useless in a game. Here are some tips on how to exploit a queen.
Queens move in straight lines—vertically, horizontally, and diagonally—long or short distance, and able to check 8 pieces simultaneously. They can easily get in and out of tight situations and almost single-handedly assault enemy camp of weak opponents. Many intermediate players specialize in solo queen plays with the rest of their pieces often just taking the back seat amid all the excitement—their queen doing all the work.
Solo queen plays are both good and bad. They're good when mastering how to play the queen piece. But they're bad because when the queen is captured their play is almost always paralyzed. The better strategy then is to master both queen solo play and queen team play.
Queen team play is a formidable strategy in chess. If we have a rook, knight, and bishop teaming up with our queen piece in chess in a very proficient manner we're hard to beat at chess. A queen is equal in strategy value with a rook and 2 bishops. Thus, if we have all these pieces in coordinated action it's like playing with 2 queens. With this team work the queen's full potential is likely to manifest.
A queen needs back up no matter how strong it is and how good the player is with it. Especially when penetrating deep into enemy camp and hitting captures and checks it needs long distance support from rooks or bishops. Long distance support makes escape quick for the queen because its environs do not get too crowded unlike a short distance support where pawns and other pieces may get in the way of a clean and fast get-away route.
Nevertheless, short distance support also works best in trapping major pieces or even the enemy king. A trap is more deadly when the trapping team is headed by a queen. But care should be observed not to bring all pieces in full support of the queen team and leave only pawns defending the king.
Thus, it is best to keep the queen piece in chess until the game is over. To retain it we ought to be moderate in its assault missions and always have a back up support when it attacks.