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Value of Chess Pieces – Queen Chess Piece

Chess pieces are assigned a point in the game of chess. This is done as a heuristic which helps to determine the strategic importance of each piece. These values may not have any formal role but they are really useful to the players and are useful in the computer chess also. These values and calculations provide a rough idea only to the players of the state of play. The exact values of the chess pieces depend on the situation of the play. This can differ from the standard ideas of value. The Queen Chess piece is among the most powerful chess pieces and the only woman on the chess board.

The most important piece in the game of chess is the Queen chess peice. There is one Queen for each player. The Queen piece is placed in the middle rank adjacent to the king. According to the white and black columns on the chess board, the white Queen is placed on the white square and the black Queen Chess piece is placed on the black square. This is called Queen on colour. The white Queen chess piece starts on d1 and the black Queen piece on d8 according to algebraic notation. Shatranj is the ancestral game of chess. In this the Queen piece was replaced by a ‘fers’ or ‘vizier’ and had a fairly low and weak status. They could move only in a diagonal position and could capture only one square. Others considered this chess piece as a minister. The 15th century saw the arrival of the modern Queen with all her powers and the chess game then accorded nine points to the Queen piece. Since chess assigns no points to the king, this makes the Queen chess piece the most valuable piece.

Many chess players are of opinion that some minor pieces are equally good as the Queen piece. But Gary Karpov, the world chess champion believes that a side without a Queen piece is as good as defeated.

Other players talk about a Queen and pawn equaling a rook piece. But this is far from true. The Queen needs no pawn to defeat the rooks. The best thing about the Queen chess piece is that it can move in any direction. It can capture any column and combines the moves of the rook and the bishop.

The most powerful position for Queen is when the enemy king is in an open or undefended position. The Queen chess piece can then execute a check. Most inexperienced players tend to use their Queens first and this is not a wise decision.

When the Queen is ready to attack it is a formidable force. Another advantage of the Queen Chess piece is that it can be moved to any number of unoccupied squares in a straight line, diagonally, vertically or horizontally. The Queen can thus thwart the moves of a rook or bishop.The Queen Chess piece can also capture the squares on which the enemy sits by just occupying them.




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