A question about the queen.

Does anyone find it easier to play chess without the queens on the board? For me, chess seems SOOOO much easier without them on. I suppose, for me,  it is because the queen's value can vary from a bishop/knight to an entire army for god sake. I feel like my king value goes up ten-fold whenever the queens come off .

I guess I like playing without queens on the board on a lot of the time. Material imbalences are a big exception, so don't mention this. I am talking about a general position you normally would see: now take the queens off. I get that it depends on the position and all, but this is a general question, and worse questions have been asked before.

Anyhow, do you find it easier/more pleasant to play with both you and your opponent's queens off the board in a game?

Yes. Michael Baron, FM would agree with you

OFF TOPIC: Holy crap, while i was in melbourne, I did see Michael, the club, and participated in a few games over there. The area around was so gang like looking, lol. 

Instead of removing the queen, I usually make the queen act like a rook.

Or another piece for that matter.

Not advisable!

Yeah, but I only play that with friends and family.

Play whatever seems best at the time.

Chess is much easier when my opponent's queen is off the board, of course I still have mine

Absolutely! Especially when my opponent is stronger than me. Much less hassle when the queens are gone and an incentive for me to keep on playing and using every little oppurtunity to improve my position to attain that decisive edge.

As long as I've got a Pawn, the Queen isn't dead. She's only sleeping.

Ha! You changed the OP, Randomemory

This. The way to beat a higher-rated player is to get COUNTER-PLAY... not easy to do once the Queens are traded off.

It depends on the position, and I'd say in the majority of positions there is still enough counterplay to be had in queenless positions.

Everybody seems to be focusing about getting queens off against stronger opposition.  Myself, I love it when lower rated players go straight for the queen trade, because I'm usually pretty sure that I'm a better endgame player than somebody rated lower than I am.

I do not allow myself any preferences. There is no room for favoritism or sentimentality, when I am trying to win. I read the board, (or attempt to*) and do what it tells me.

Queens are nice, they make checkmating my opponent so much easier. So if my opponents king is kind airy, I will try to keep them on.

But they also make getting checkmated much easier. If my opponent sacs material to bust open my king, I will take it, and immediatly look to trade queens off.

But all else being equal, I am probably slightly faster to trade queens than your average bear. That brings the game closer to the best part. (The endgame.) Plus, I know how it just annoys many of my opponents when queens come off earlier than they like. 

When I was in high school, I won just about every game I played. This was before the internet and my pool of opponents was only my high school. But I noticed that I was better at positions with Queens on the board than off, so I started trading off Queens as quickly as possible in order to learn how to play quieter positions. 

In one sense, that hurt my chess development because I stopped playing complex positions. In another sense, it helped me to play quieter positions better and endgames better. 

Generally, if you are having difficulty playing with the queens on the board, it's because those positions are more complex. Don't shy away from complexity in chess. It's part of what makes it beautiful. 

The question of when to trade pieces is one of the most challenging in chess, and the question of when to trade queens is one of the most important of those challenges! Don't trade queens lightly. Vasily Smyslov is one of my favorite players because he seemed to know exactly the right time to trade off queens and when to retreat his queen rather than allow a trade. 

You could do worse than study his games to see how to handle your queen.

Lovely. I'm using that.

I am way too biased towards tactics, I always just try to calculate my way to a win. Without queens on, I have to think in more general terms and actually play positional chess. I'm better with queens on.

I like how half of the people don't bother to answer the question. 

Do you find it more pleasant to play without queens or not? Do you find it easier to play chess without queens? 

thank you smyslovcat thing for that story, i really liked reading that.

Too true. I had a situation like this only a month or two ago.

When going over the game I realised that, had I not wasted 1 king move, I'd have won. The player was rated around 300 points higher so it would have been a nice little win for me.

1 move! Just micalculated. I suppose that's the difference between good players and me though.