Trading queens - Yes or no?

Are you into trading queens in a game of chess? Personally I only prefer to trade queens, if it is going to give me some sort of material or positional advantage, such as disallowing your opponent to castle, or creating some space and the like.

Otherwise I try to refrain from trading them off. If you were in a bad position, e.g. a material disadvantage, the game could be carried out without any change in the difference of material gain and a queen trade may prevent something like a draw by perpetual check.

What are your views? Feel free to post them on this forum.

britishquaker

I've had a few chances to trade queens early in the game lately and it definitely gave me a weakness to exploit. If my opponent gives up his right to castle, I try to force him to double his pawns or I try to isolate them. I'm usually happy to let them give me what I consider an advantage.

As in any situation keep your good pieces and trade your bad ones. So trade the queen only if you think it is helping him more than you.

Endings with queens can get very tricky. Very, very tricky. So trade it if you are not happy with that ending...

Thanks for all of these comments. Yes, it does depend in the situation, really. That's pretty much the most fundamental thing about it.

As everyone said, it all depends on the position. If your queen is participating in a huge attack, trading queens should be the last thing on your mind. If trading queens gives you some type of advantage, go for it.

A halfway insightful thread! Haven't seen one these for a while. A few new things to consider for next time the situation arises.

Spielman says that an attacker who wins material should think twice about trading queens, even though that's standard advice when you're up material, because it often gives up the remaining attacking chances.  But of course he was a gonzo attacking player by style. 

I played a strong Expert at the Oregon Open and won two pawns unexpectedly in an opening trap.  His king was also stuck in the center.  I traded queens and ended up having to scrabble for the draw:  in retrospect keeping them on would have suited me better.  Of course, if I'd kept the queens on and gotten mated, everyone would be saying I should have traded....

The two imponderables are (a) your personal style, and (b) your specific position.

It's worth noting that queen endgames are very different from other endgames.  Number of pawns doesn't matter much.  Passed pawns, especially advanced ones, matter hugely, as does king safety.  If you have a completely safe king you can often win an even-material queen endgame.  (This is one of the few times that doubled pawns are good:  the pawn structure f2, f3, g3 makes a king on g2 impossible to check, and is excellent in a Q endgame.)  So if you're thinking of trading queens late in the game, you need to assess which set of pieces suits your pawn structure.  In most cases Q's in the endgame make it hard to win due to infinite checking possibilities--something to head for if you are worse, avoid if you are better.  But the pawn structure, and how much protection it gives the king, is critical. 

Thanks for the very insightful description.

I almost always trade them because I am at a low level, and I find that at my level a lot players rely heavily on their queen as an attacker or defensive piece. I've won games in bad positions because my opponent simply couldn't play without his queen.

I seem to remember seeing something that said, "The queen is just another piece." If we take that into account then it would be normal to trade off queens in the same kind of positions as if you would trade your other pieces, e.g. to create space or if your piece is weaker than the other piece you want to trade with.