in chess can you have more than 1 black/white queen at the same time.?

Question

I think that's a thiefin' move to begin with, the idea of "queening" but as it's legal doesn't it border on ridiculous to have more than 1 queen of the same colour on the board at the same time or is that an illegal move.

Please help to put an end to the long running chess dispute between siblings.

Answer 1

I think it is clear that a number of people have not been taught the game properly and the ignorance of those who taught them has been passed on and perpetuated in the process,

People are similarly hazy about the rules for castling, the en passant rule, which way round the board is placed, which colour squares the king and queen go on at the start of the game, the 50-move draw rule, the draw by 3-fold repetition rule, and what constitutes a stalemate.

It means that many local variants of chess are played and co-exist, varying from family to family and many avoidable conflicts over what the rules actually say then arise.

Think how farcical it would be if in an important football match (say Liverpool v Intermilan in the Champions League Final) one team were to start arguing that "we don't play the offside rule" or "you cannot have more than one player in the penalty area at the same time"

There can in theory be nine white queens and nine black queens on the board at the same time. The rules permit it.

In his My Best Games of Chess book Alexander Alekhine (who was World Champion 1927-35 and again from 1937-48) cites an Alekhine v Grigoriev game in 1915 in which there were 5 queens on the board at the same time. The game was a French Defence, MacCutcheon Variation.

The link below (an article by Tim Krabbe) gives you the moves and diagrams of key positions in the game. It comments how the position when Black plays 23. ... b1=Q (making the 5th queen) must be one of the most reprinted positions in the history of chess.

There was also a game in Alekhine's 1927 World Championship match with the Cuban Jose Raul Capablanca in which there were four queens on the board, which ended in a win for Alekhine as Black in a Queen's Gambit Declined.

I give the moves in the 5-queens game given by Alekhine up to move 23 ... as the position is most unusual and of great curiosity value. There are black queens on c2 and b1, and White queens on g8, e4 and f4.

Alekhine - Grigoriev, Moscow 1915
1.e4 e6
2.d4 d5
3.Nc3 Nf6
4.Bg5 Bb4
5.e5 h6
6.exf6 hxg5
7.fxg7 Rg8
8.h4 gxh4
9.Qg4 Be7
10.g3 c5
11.gxh4 cxd4
12.h5 dxc3
13.h6 cxb2
14.Rbl Qa5+
15.Ke2 Qxa2
16.h7 Qxbl
17.hxg8=Q+ Kd7
18.Qxf7 Qxc2+
19.Kf3 Nc6
20.Qgxe6+ Kc7
21.Qf4+ Kb6
22.Qee3+ Bc5
23.g8=Q bl=Q

Alekhine then plays a quiet rook move which wins in all variations. I will leave the curious to go into this more thoroughly by following the link! (There are more surprises in store when you do!)

Answer 2

someone earlier mentioned that many people who play chess
on a casual basis, develop different rules for en passant,
castling, pawn promotions, and draws by either
3-fold repetition or stalemate. he is correct, but i felt
his response was rather condescending. using a word
such as "ignorant" to describe a friendly grandfather or
uncle who teahces a young child the game, although
accurate, is rather harsh.

the official worldwide body that governs chess affairs is
the french FIDE organization.
the offical rules can be found here: http://fide.com/official/handbook.asp?level=EE101

the key to playing chess by the correct rules is to first
treat the game the right way. it's not checkers. it's
not monopoly. it's actually much more of a sport.
this site will open your eyes a little, if you're not aware
of the competitive international atmosphere of the game:
http://chessbase.com


to answer your question,
when a pawn reaches the opponents back rank it MUST
be promoted to another piece (a pawn is not considered
a "piece" in chess; it is simply a pawn). usually, one will
choose to promote to a queen or less commonly, a knight.
checkmate is the sole goal of a chess game, and a
knight promotion may lead to a forced mate or avoid a
stalemate.

now, promotion are VERY common. there are 3 phases to
the game: opening, middlegame, endgame. the goal of
chess is to checkmate the queen. in a competitive match,
one usually wins in the endgame. why? because a material
advantage(having more pieces) becomes much more
important at the end of the game.
if pawns could not promote, they would be fairly useless
beyond the middlegame. most games would end in draws.
usually the goal of the player with a positional or material
advantage is to convert that advantage into an extra queen
in the endgame.

therefore, as the game progresses, pawns become much
more valuable. one may often sac pawns to gain some
kind of advantage in the early phases of the game. however,
in the endgame a king + 2 pawns vs. lone king is usually
a forced win.

one queen is usually enough to win an endgame. although
one may have as many queens as possible(one for
each pawn + the original queen) AT THE SAME TIME
on the board, with good endgame technique a queen and
king vs. a lone king is always a forced win.

i'm a rated, tournament player. ~1750 USCF
if you have any questions, feel free to ask.

*Note:

the supposed 5 queen game mentioned earlier is
a construction. the actual game can be found here:
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1011966

Answer 3

You may have as many queens as you would like. However, one thing that you must always keep im mind is that you must not get too carried away and got so many queens that you cause a stalemate. You should get about two queens to be safe. But keep in mind that if you actually play with an actual board, you can flip a captured piece.

Answer 4

Yes, you can have more than 1 black/white queen at the same time, or more than 2 bishops, 2 knights, or 2 rooks, even though most player would promote the pawn to queen.

Answer 5

You must be some good chess player to be having these dispute :-) one may have as many queens when the pawn makes it to the other side. But I do wonder why the opponent permits this to happen?

Answer 6

Every piece on the chess board can only move from one square to another square, capturing only the piece on the square it lands on. With the exception of the knight, no pieces can go 'through' other pieces, so must end its movement in any chosen direction on the opposing piece it captures (if not before)

Answer 7

It is possible to have 9 white and 9 black queens on the board simultaneously, but it would take immense stupidity.

Answer 8

yes you can have as many queens as you can get pawns to the back row...

(learn to block)

the rules may seem strange, my brother plays en-passe, and thats really screwy... if i dont take him, he can just take me anyways... i dont play en passe...

and ive been playing since i was 9 or 10... im 50 this year, and i stil play... as often as i can... and its not like i win all the time, my little brother whups me... but i may win 2 out of 10, and ill drag his sorry a ss around the board for 2 hours... we usually end up with a few pawns and a king each...

its the playing the game which is fun... we win we loose, and we keep on playing... why? because we can...

Answer 9

yes, if your pawn reaches the other side of the board you can change it to either a Queen, a Castle, a Bishop or a Knight, most go with a Queen, infact you can have more than two.

Answer 10

getting a pawn to the other side turns it into a queen i think. its not easy to get a pawn to the other side so it is rare for this to happen.

"A pawn reaching the final rank becomes a queen in a process known as "queening" or "promotion" (or, if the player prefers, a rook, bishop or knight; this is called "underpromotion"