Daily Queens Game — Thursday, July 2, 2026
Thursday, July 2, 2026 · 9x9 grid. A brand new puzzle, the same for everyone, resetting at midnight UTC.
About the daily Queens game
A new Queens puzzle every day at midnight UTC — free online, no sign-up. Replay unlimited past challenges from the daily archive or browse 1,800+ Queens puzzles.
How to play Queens
- The board is an N×N grid divided into N colored regions.
- Place exactly one queen (♛) in each row, each column, and each colored region.
- No two queens may touch each other — not horizontally, vertically, or diagonally.
- Tap once to mark a square with an X (where a queen can't go), tap again to place a queen, and once more to clear it.
- There is always exactly one valid solution. Use logic, never guessing, to find it.
Step-by-step solution for puzzle #273
What follows is a complete solve of puzzle #273, worked the way a person works it rather than the way a computer does. It runs to 18 deductions — 9 queen placements and 9 elimination steps that narrow the board between them. Each step names the rule that forces it, so nothing below is a guess, and the hardest idea required is the line confined to one region.
Techniques this board needs: last square in a region, region shadow, region confined to one line, line confined to one region, last square in a column, last square in a row.
Show the full walkthrough (13 steps) — contains the solution
Step 1. Only row 9, column 7 is still open in orange, and since each colour must take a queen, that settles it. That clears row 9, column 7, the rest of the orange region and every square adjacent to it — diagonals included.
Step 2. Indigo is down to 3 candidates in rows 1 and 2, columns 1 and 2, and they overlap enough to cover 1 square elsewhere. Cross those out without deciding anything about indigo itself.
Step 3. The mint region has 6 squares left, spread across rows 2–5, columns 4–6. You do not need to know which of them takes the queen: every one of those options attacks the same 1 square, so they can be crossed out now.
Step 4. Wherever red ends up among its 4 squares, the same squares fall within reach of it — 2 squares in total, impossible regardless of how the colour resolves.
The board after step 4 — 1 of 9 queens placed. Step 5. Only row 8, column 9 is still open in khaki, and since each colour must take a queen, that settles it. That clears row 8, column 9, the rest of the khaki region and every square adjacent to it — diagonals included.
Step 6. All of the blue region's remaining squares (5 open squares) lie in column 8. Its queen therefore has to be somewhere in that column, which means no other colour may use it: 1 square come off.
Step 7. Slate cannot leave column 1 — every one of its open squares (4 open squares) sits there. That column belongs to slate, so every square in it owned by another colour is dead: 3 squares in all.
Step 8. The indigo region is down to one open square, at row 1, column 2. Every colour holds exactly one queen, so that square is forced. Row 1 and column 2 are now spoken for, along with the squares touching that queen.
Step 9. The amber region has 2 squares left, spread across rows 2 and 5, columns 5 and 6. You do not need to know which of them takes the queen: every one of those options attacks the same 4 squares, so they can be crossed out now.
The board after step 9 — 3 of 9 queens placed. Step 10. Wherever mint ends up among its 2 squares, the same squares fall within reach of it — 3 squares in total, impossible regardless of how the colour resolves.
Step 11. Red is down to 2 candidates in rows 6 and 7, columns 5 and 6, and they overlap enough to cover 1 square elsewhere. Cross those out without deciding anything about red itself.
Step 12. Every open square left in column 3 (4 open squares) belongs to the pale yellow region. Since that column must contain a queen, pale yellow is the colour that supplies it — so pale yellow squares anywhere else on the board are out, 2 squares in all.
Step 13. From here the board cascades. Keep alternating the region sweep and the line sweep and 6 queens fall out in order without any new idea being needed: column 4 is down to one square, putting a queen on row 4, column 4; row 3 is down to one square, putting a queen on row 3, column 8; row 2 is down to one square, putting a queen on row 2, column 5; red has one square left, so its queen takes row 6, column 6; pale yellow has one square left, so its queen takes row 7, column 3; slate has one square left, so its queen takes row 5, column 1. After each one, clear that row, that column, the rest of the colour and the ring of neighbours before looking for the next. The last of them seats the queen on row 5, column 1.
The board after step 13 — 9 of 9 queens placed.
That completes the board: 9 queens seated, one in every row, one in every column and one in every colour, with no two of them touching. Notice that nothing in the sequence above required a guess — each placement followed from an elimination already on the grid, which is what “single solution, solvable by logic” actually means in practice.
About 9x9 Queens puzzle #273
Puzzle #273 is one of the medium-rated boards in the 9x9 set. Nine colors divide its 81 squares, and you win by placing nine queens so that each row, each column and each color holds exactly one, with no two queens adjacent in any direction.
There is exactly one way to finish #273, and it has been verified. More importantly, you can reach it without ever gambling: at every stage some square is provably right or provably wrong. Boards differ only in how deep you must dig before that proof appears, and the geometry of these nine regions is what sets the depth.
How the colors divide this board
From smallest to largest, the regions on puzzle #273 are: orange (1 square), indigo (3 squares), mint (6 squares), slate (6 squares), red (7 squares), khaki (9 squares), amber (12 squares), blue (14 squares), pale yellow (23 squares). An even split would hand every color 9 squares, so the orange region is running 8 squares under that average while the pale yellow region is the roomiest area on the grid with 23 squares.
Why does the split matter? Because a region's square count has no bearing on how many queens it gets — the answer is always one. So orange, with 1 square, is under far more pressure than pale yellow with 23. A 22-square gap like this one rewards players who start where the choices are fewest.
Look at arrangement as well as area. Orange is the densest region on this grid at 100% of a 1×1 frame; amber is the loosest, occupying only 40% of its 5×6 frame. The loose one reaches into more rows and columns, which is exactly why it usually settles last.
Region by region
Below is every color on #273 with its exact reach, smallest region first. It is worth a slow read: the spans reveal which rows and columns several regions are fighting over.
Orange: 1 square across rows 9–9, columns 7–7. It never leaves row 9, so its queen is locked to that row.
Indigo covers 3 squares, spanning 2 rows and 2 columns (rows 1–2, columns 1–2).
Mint occupies 6 squares within rows 2–5, columns 4–6.
Slate: 6 squares across rows 4–8, columns 1–2.
Red covers 7 squares, spanning 4 rows and 4 columns (rows 6–9, columns 4–7).
Khaki occupies 9 squares within rows 7–9, columns 6–9.
Amber: 12 squares across rows 1–5, columns 3–8.
Blue covers 14 squares, spanning 7 rows and 3 columns (rows 1–7, columns 7–9).
Pale yellow occupies 23 squares within rows 2–9, columns 1–4.
Where to start on this board
The most constrained color is where a solve should begin, and on #273 that is orange with 1 square. It reaches from row 9 to row 9 and from column 7 to column 7 — 1 row by 1 column. One queen has to live inside that footprint no matter what else happens, which makes those lines the busiest real estate on the board.
Because orange never leaves row 9, its queen must be in that row — and that instantly settles row 9 for everyone else. Sweep along it and X out every square that is not orange. Then look at which colors just lost ground: on a grid this size that one observation usually forces a second region within a move or two.
Work outward to the other flat regions next. Indigo is no more than two rows tall, so its queen is confined to a narrow band. When two flat regions overlap the same pair of rows, those rows are spoken for and every other color is locked out of both — the single most productive pattern in the game, and it is live on this board.
The tightest lines on puzzle #273
A quick way to find the next move is to count how many different colors touch each line. On this board, row 1 is the narrowest, touched by only 3 colors. Columns 3 and 9 are the tightest columns, with 2 colors.
Count colors per line and you have a ranking of where to look. The narrowest rows here see only 3 colors, so one of that handful must take the row and the rest are squeezed into the other 8 rows. Row 7 sits at the far end with 5 colors crossing it; it will almost certainly be among the last to settle.
Working through the middle game
Once two or three queens are down, the board changes character. Each queen removes an entire row, an entire column and the ring of up to eight squares around it, so the grid shrinks faster than most people expect. The habit that pays here is marking rather than remembering: after every placement, cross out the full row, the full column and all eight neighbours before hunting for the next move.
The whole middle game reduces to two sweeps. Sweep the nine colors looking for one with a single square left; sweep the nine rows and nine columns looking for the same. Each sweep feeds the next, and switching between them deliberately — rather than drifting — is what separates a fast 9x9 solve from a stalled one.
The trap on a board like this is placing a queen that is merely plausible. Every placement should be traceable to an elimination you can point at. If you cannot name the rule that forced it, you are guessing — and on a single-solution grid a guess costs more to unwind than the deduction would have taken to find.
Why puzzle #273 is rated medium
What earns a board its rating is the shape of its opening. Here that opening offers two single-line regions, a 1-square smallest color, a tightest row touched by 3 colors, and a region-size spread of 22. Lopsided grids with flat regions fall quickly; balanced ones like this take more patience.
Rating is a measure of chain length, not of chance. With one guaranteed solution and no guessing required, the only thing that changes across the collection is how many eliminations you must link together before a queen is provably forced.
Stuck on #273 despite the medium rating? The odds strongly favour a bookkeeping error over a hard chain of logic. Re-check each placed queen for its complete set of eliminations, paying particular attention to the four diagonal squares — those are the ones that get overlooked, and one of them is usually sitting on the answer.
Techniques that work well at 9x9
At 9x9 a full re-scan after every move starts to get slow, so work locally instead. Once a queen goes down, check only the regions, rows and columns that placement actually touched — that is where new information appeared. Fall back to a complete sweep only when the local pass turns up nothing, and your solve times will drop noticeably.
Learn the pairing argument and you will use it on every board, this one included. If two colors can only sit inside the same two rows, between them they consume both rows and every other color is shut out. It generalises to any matching count — three colors across three rows, four across four. On #273, start hunting for it near column 3.
Use this as a rough check on your progress: the completed board has 4 queens around the border and 5 queens in the middle, and nothing in the corners. Solutions spread out; if yours is bunching up in one region of the grid, retrace a few moves.
Frequently asked questions
How hard is 9x9 Queens puzzle #273?
Puzzle #273 is rated medium. Its smallest color region holds 1 square, its tightest row is touched by 3 colors, and two of its regions are confined to a single row or column, which gives you a forced move early.
Does 9x9 puzzle #273 have only one solution?
Yes. Every puzzle in the 9x9 collection, including #273, has been verified to have exactly one valid arrangement of nine queens, and it can always be reached by logic alone — no guessing or backtracking needed.
Where should I place my first queen on puzzle #273?
Start with the orange region — the most constrained color on this board, with 1 square spanning rows 9–9 and columns 7–7. Narrowing the smallest region first removes the most squares elsewhere on the grid.
What makes the daily Queens game special
The daily Queens game challenge is one carefully chosen puzzle that is the same for every player around the world. A new board goes live every day at midnight UTC and stays as the day's official puzzle until the next reset. Because everyone is solving the identical grid, the daily becomes a shared experience: you can compare how you approached it with friends, talk through the tricky deduction in the middle, or simply enjoy the quiet satisfaction of knowing you cracked the same board as solvers everywhere else.
Like every puzzle on the site, the daily Queens game online is completely free, needs no sign-up and runs instantly in your browser so you can play Queens online in seconds. It is designed to be a perfect bite-sized brain exercise — long enough to feel earned, short enough to fit into a coffee break. Solving it keeps your daily streak alive, and the streak is a gentle nudge to come back tomorrow and keep the logical part of your mind warmed up.
How today's puzzle is chosen
Each day's board is drawn from our larger library of verified puzzles, so the daily inherits the same cast-iron guarantee as the rest of the site: it has exactly one solution and that solution is always reachable by logic alone, never by guessing. The grid size and the specific puzzle rotate from day to day, which keeps the routine varied — some days you will face a brisk smaller board, other days a meatier grid that rewards a slower, more methodical solve.
Because the selection is deterministic and tied to the date, the puzzle you see today is exactly the puzzle every other player sees today, and it is exactly the puzzle that will sit at this date forever in the archive. There is no randomness between players and no way to refresh into an easier board — the challenge is fixed, fair and shared, which is precisely what makes comparing solves with other people meaningful.
Replay the full daily archive
Missing a day is never a problem here. Every past daily challenge is preserved in the archive, so you can step back to any previous date and play that day's board exactly as it appeared. This is something the original LinkedIn-style daily does not let you do, and it turns the daily from a one-shot novelty into a deep, replayable collection you can binge whenever you like.
The archive is also a great way to practice. If today's grid size suits you, browse backward to find more boards of the same shape, or work through the history in order to feel how the puzzles vary over time. You can move directly between consecutive days using the previous and next links, jump to any date from the archive list, or branch out into the full puzzle library whenever you want even more to solve.
A simple daily solving routine
A reliable routine makes the daily quick and stress-free. Begin by reading the colors: find the smallest or most awkwardly shaped region, because a cramped region usually forces its queen into one of very few squares. Then sweep the rows and columns for any line that already has only a single open cell, since a queen must go there. Place those forced queens first and let them do the heavy lifting.
After every placement, immediately mark X's on the squares that queen rules out — the rest of its row, column and region, plus every neighboring square it touches. These marks keep the board honest and constantly expose the next forced move. When easy moves run out, hunt for pairs of regions confined to the same rows or columns; identifying those locked lines is what breaks open the harder daily boards. Work in calm passes, trust the logic, and the final queen will click into place.
More ways to keep playing
If one puzzle a day is not enough, the Queens game online keeps you covered. Dive into the archive to replay history, or open the full library of more than 1,800 puzzles across six grid sizes, from quick 7x7 boards to demanding 12x12 grids. Every one of them follows the same friendly promise: one queen per row, one per column, one per color region, none of them touching, and a single solution you can always reach by reasoning rather than luck.
However you choose to play, the daily challenge is a great anchor for the habit. Solve it each day to protect your streak, use the archive to catch up on anything you missed, and lean on the wider library whenever you want to push your skills further. It is a free, friendly, guess-free logic puzzle that is always ready when you want to think.