What "medium" means here
Medium Queens boards add one idea: two color regions squeezed into the same two rows own both of those rows' queens, so everything else in those rows is out. You will chain two or three eliminations before a crown lands, and the board stays honest the whole way.
We don't grade by eye. Every board goes through our solver, which plays it the way a careful person would, one forced move at a time, and ranks each deduction from the obvious to the deep. A medium board needs the region-counting move at least once, or leans on the simpler moves hard enough that the whole solve adds up to real work, without ever asking you to test a square.
The moves you need
The easy moves plus one more, used in combination.
1. A small region claims its line
When every cell of a color region sits in one row or one column, that line's only queen must be inside the region, so everything else in the line is crossed off before you have placed anything. The smallest patch of color is where the board opens.
1 This region has just two cells, both in the same row. Its queen is one of them — so that row's only queen is already spoken for.
2 Every other cell in the row is out. Small regions are where a Queens board breaks open.
2. Two regions, two rows
If two regions live entirely inside the same two rows, those regions need two queens and two rows can only hold two, so every other cell in those rows is out. Look for three regions in three rows next. It works the same way on columns.
1 These two regions sit entirely inside the top two rows. Each needs a queen, and two rows can hold only two.
2 So the top two rows' queens belong to those two regions — every other cell up there is X'd, before a single queen is placed.
Want it named on a real board? Every day's Queens solution plays the solve through step by step, and the Queens vs Star Battle guide maps each move onto its two-star cousin.
Today's medium board
Recent medium boards
Missed a day? Nothing here expires. Every medium board we've released stays playable.
Every past board, all three tiers
Moving between tiers
If a medium board keeps stalling, drop to the easy tier for a few days and let the eliminations become automatic. There is no clock on it. When today's medium board falls in under four minutes without a pause, the hard tier is one new idea away.
Medium Queens FAQ
Is medium Queens free to play?
Yes. Every medium Queens board here is free to play in the browser with no app and no account. A new one is published every day, and every past medium board stays playable.
How long should a medium Queens puzzle take?
Roughly three to six minutes once the moves are familiar. Your first few will run longer while you learn to see the eliminations, which is what the tier is for.
Does a medium Queens puzzle ever need guessing?
Never, and neither does any other tier. Every board we publish has exactly one solution and our solver confirms it can be reached by logic alone before it goes live.
Is this the LinkedIn Queens game?
We are not affiliated with LinkedIn. Our boards follow the same one-queen-per-row, column and color rules that LinkedIn made popular, but every board here is our own, and you get three tiers a day instead of one board.