queen

the queen (♕, ♛) is the most powerful piece in the game of chess, able to move any number of squares vertically, horizontally or diagonally, combining the power of the rook and bishop. Each player starts the game with one queen, placed in the middle of the first rank next to the king. Because the queen is the strongest piece, a pawn is promoted to a queen in the vast majority of cases.

In the Persian game of shatranj, the ancestor of chess that included only male figures, the closest thing to the queen was the ferz, a weak piece only able to move or capture one step diagonally and not at all in any other direction. The modern chess queen gained power in the 15th century.

In most languages the piece is known as "queen" or "lady" (e.g. Italian regina). Asian and Eastern European languages tend to refer to it as vizier, minister or advisor (e.g. Arabic/Persian وزیر wazir, Russian ферзь ferz). In Polish it is known as the hetman – the name of a major historical military-political office, while in Estonian it is called lipp ("flag", "standard").

The white queen starts on d1, while the black queen starts on d8. With the chessboard oriented correctly, the white queen starts on a white square and the black queen starts on a black square—thus the mnemonics "queen gets her color", "queen on [her] [own] color", or "the dress [queen piece] matches the shoes [square]" (Latin: servat rēgīna colōrem).

The queen can be moved any number of unoccupied squares in a straight line vertically, horizontally, or diagonally, thus combining the moves of the rook and bishop. The queen captures by occupying the square on which an enemy piece sits.

Although both players start with one queen each, a pawn can be promoted to any of several types of pieces, including a queen, when the pawn is moved to the player's furthest rank (the opponent's first rank). Such a queen created by promotion can be an additional queen, or if the player's queen has been captured, a replacement queen. Pawn promotion to a queen is colloquially called queening, which is by far the most common type of piece a pawn is promoted to due to the relative power of a queen.

The queen is typically worth about nine pawns, which is slightly stronger than a rook and a bishop together, but slightly less strong than two rooks, though there are exceptions. It is almost always disadvantageous to exchange the queen for a single piece other than the enemy's queen.

The reason that the queen is stronger than a combination of a rook and bishop, even though they control the same number of squares, is twofold. First, the queen is more mobile than the rook and the bishop, as the entire power of the queen can be transferred to another location in one move, while transferring the entire firepower of a rook and bishop requires two moves, the bishop always being restricted to squares of one color. Second, the queen is not hampered by the bishop's inability to control squares of the opposite color to the square on which it stands. A factor in favor of the rook and bishop is that they can attack (or defend) a square twice, while a queen can only do so once. However, experience has shown that this factor is usually less significant than the points favoring the queen.[3]

The queen is strongest when the board is open, when the enemy king is poorly defended, or when there are loose (i.e. undefended) pieces in the enemy camp. Because of her long range and ability to move in multiple directions, the queen is well-equipped to execute forks. Compared to other long range pieces (i.e. rooks and bishops), the queen is less restricted and stronger in closed positions.A queen sacrifice is the deliberate sacrifice of a queen in order to gain a more favorable tactical position. One of the most widely known examples of this was in the game Anderssen–Kieseritzky, 1851, where Anderssen sacrificed a queen (along with three other pieces) to reach checkmate.