Queen for Queen swop - always worth it ??

Dare I say, it depends? Do you gain a positional advantage from swapping the queens or does your opponent?

Here's a game I finished the other day, on move 30 I intentionally orchestrated a queen swap in order to open up the F file, this allowed me to get my rooks into the game and get the checkmate.

First of all, may I add that you can also play this on the pc? I personally prefer this as small buttons may be annoying. Furthermore I wanted to add that a queen trade can also be benificial whenever your queen is trapped, and you are going to lose your queen anyway. Better take your opponent's queen to be even

Its like any other trade.  What is the position after the trade -- did it improve you, weaken you, whatever?   Make the decision based of what comes next, not who has more material points.  Do not weaken yourself or waste a bunch of moves avoiding a trade; instead, if your opponent is trying to trade then you try to set it up so the trade favors you afterwards, in position or tempo if not material.  

Many raw beginners can't play without the queen, and trading it is almost an instant win if you know how to use the other pieces effectively. 

Depends. The others answered well. But just think of it this way if you are winning even trading is good. However at your level lots of people miss checkmates or captures and they decide to trade instead. So first always look for checks, captures and threats.

Really appreciate your thoughts. Thanks everyone 

If it is white to move, do you trade queen?

Black to move, do you trade queens?

Warlord,

I agree with you about the queen trades.

I think the bishop pair is supposed to make your bishops more powerful.  Lose one bishop and you take a major hit.

In other words having the bishop pair should be more than 6 pawns.

I am actually quite surprised tbh, I would definitely not trade queens as white. You have two bischops to try perform a kiss of death with, quite confident those kisses of death can work

This is actually trickier than first glance. White is threatening checkmate in 1 with Qxg7# so that changes things slightly lol.

Assessing the position as is, White would NOT typically want a Queen trade (ignoring the mate in 1 threat here) because Qxc6? allows ...Nbxc6 to help Black develop a piece with the recapture; White shouldn't help Black by giving them a chance to develop (improve Black's position). Similarly, White does not get anything out of giving up the Queen - in fact, White's Queen was more active at the moment, so that indicates White wants to AVOID trading Queens now. 

Black to move: Black may want to trade Queens because their Queen is less active than White's Queen is. Additionally, mate in 1 is threatened. A good move for Black, if not exchanging Queens, might be ...f6 to defend checkmate on g7. Usually moving pawns in front of a castled King position is not advised, but this may be playable in this exact position because the f6 pawn would cut down on the scope of the long diagonal Queen or Bishop (from b2) aiming at the Black Kingside.