Queen (chess)

Queen (chess)

The queen (♕,♛) is the most powerful piece in the game of chess, able to move any number of squares vertically, horizontally, or diagonally. Each player starts the game with one queen, placed in the middle of the first rank next to the king. With the chessboard oriented correctly, the white queen starts on a white square and the black queen on a black square. (Thus the mnemonics "queen gets her color", or "queen on color", or "queen on her own color".) In algebraic notation, the white queen starts on d1 and the black queen starts on d8. Because the queen is the most powerful piece, when a pawn is promoted it is almost always promoted to a queen.

In the game shatranj, an ancestor of chess, the queen was a fairly weak piece called a fers or vizier, only able to move or capture one step diagonally. The modern queen's move arose in 15th-century Europe.

The piece is archaically known as the minister. In Polish it is known as the Hetman – the name of a major historical military-political office. In Russian it is known as "ferz'" (ферзь).