The queen is the strongest of the chess pieces. It is believed that its value is equal to nine pawns. He is equivalent to two rooks. There is a black and white variety; they, respectively, occupy d1 and d8 cells.
Move
The queen is a piece that, according to the rules of modern chess, can move in any direction for an arbitrary number of free fields. Thus, he combines the capabilities of an elephant and a boat. Being on one of the central cells, the queen is able to attack a maximum of 27 fields, on the edge of the board - 21. According to the early rules of chess, this piece could move diagonally, horizontally and vertically. However, only one field. In ancient Russian chess, the term "queen of all sorts" existed - this piece, by agreement, could walk additionally like a horse.
In the party
The queen is a piece that at the beginning of the game is provided to each side in a single copy. Fields occupied by these shapes are similar to their own color. This is confirmed by the famous expression. It is customary to say that "the chess queen loves her color." This phrase is actively used during the training of novice players.
Experts note that in the opening it is better to be careful when deploying the queen. The fact is that this figure becomes extremely vulnerable to enemy attacks during actions in the opponent’s camp. Much better, she shows her own abilities in the endgame and middlegame. It is believed that in the first case, the king and queen always win against the enemy, if he has only light pieces. There is also a high probability of victory if the opponent has a rook.
It should be remembered how important the pawn is in the endgame. The queen can be obtained from her with tactically correct advancing. This task can be attributed to one of the main at the final stage of the game. It is from her that victory in a particular game often depends. The rules do not impose restrictions on the number of queens that can simultaneously be on the board. So in theory, in addition to the figure given at the beginning of the game, you can get 8 additional ones. To do this, you need to turn all the pawns. In practice, as a rule, the situation is different. Most often, only the second queen appears on the board, and only on one side. During the attack on the "queen" the term "guard" is often used, but the announcement is not necessary and is not in the official game rules.
Etymology
The queen is a “vizier” or “commander” translated into Russian. In many languages of Europe this figure is called the “queen”. This term is also characteristic of colloquial Russian. Regarding the origin of the name, there are two versions at once. According to the first, the word is borrowed from the French language ("virgin"). The second version is based on the fact that the appearance of the “queen” figure, which was replaced by the queen, as well as giving her considerable strength, is associated with a significant increase in the power of Isabella of Castile in Spain at the end of the fifteenth century. This piece is a frequent participant in various chess problems.