Someone with a K, maybe Korchnoi, said that the board isn't big enough for two queens. Or was that John Wayne?
Redundancy of two Queens
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"principle of the redundancy of major pieces”
How about two queens?
The game was drawn, with Korchnoi an extra queen. Later he explained something extremely strange... 'The board is too small for two queens!'>
his full statement..
"During the analysis, I discovered something very remarkable: the board is simply too small for two Queens of the same color. They only get in each other's way. I realize that this might sound stupid, but I fully mean it. The advantage is much less than one would expect by counting material."
Analysis by Stockfish 190915 64 BMI2:
= (0.24) Depth: 38/47 00:00:06 88106kN, tb=25736
I recently read an article that was about, among other things, piece redundancy. For example, two Knights can often be redundant, especially when they are standing on squares where they defend each other. In contrast, two Bishops are not redundant at all, because they control entirely different squares.
The article said that some strong players view the possession of two Queens in a surprisingly poor light (surprising to me, that is, and not the author), because two Queens are very redundant. Neither Queen does anything that the other one can't do.
As I've thought about this, I do not yet agree. Two Queens can be redundant, but a Queen controls many squares at once, so two Queens fulfilling different functions should still be very formidable.
A Queen in the center of the board can control 27 squares. What is the maximum number of squares that two Queens can control (i.e., by minimizing their redundancy)?
And discussions of strategies involving two Queens are relatively uncommon. What are some strategies in positions where one or both sides have two Queens?