Daily Queens Game — Sunday, July 5, 2026
Sunday, July 5, 2026 · 11x11 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 #154
What follows is a complete solve of puzzle #154, worked the way a person works it rather than the way a computer does. It runs to 21 deductions — 11 queen placements and 10 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 pairing argument on columns.
Techniques this board needs: last square in a region, region shadow, region confined to one line, pairing argument on rows, pairing argument on columns, last square in a row, last square in a column.
Show the full walkthrough (18 steps) — contains the solution
Step 1. Only row 11, column 1 is still open in teal, and since each colour must take a queen, that settles it. That clears row 11, column 1, the rest of the teal region and every square adjacent to it — diagonals included.
Step 2. Indigo is down to 5 candidates in rows 1 and 2, columns 7–10, and they overlap enough to cover 2 squares elsewhere. Cross those out without deciding anything about indigo itself.
Step 3. Amber cannot leave column 11 — every one of its open squares (3 open squares) sits there. That column belongs to amber, so every square in it owned by another colour is dead: 8 squares in all.
Step 4. Wherever orange ends up among its 5 squares, the same squares fall within reach of it — 1 square in total, impossible regardless of how the colour resolves.
Step 5. Indigo, amber, blue, and mint are now boxed into rows 1–4 and nothing else. That is 4 colours needing 4 rows, so they fill those rows between them — which locks every remaining colour out and removes 13 squares at once.
The board after step 5 — 1 of 11 queens placed. Step 6. Here is the pairing argument. The indigo, mint, khaki, and sea green regions have no open squares outside columns 7–10 — 4 colours confined to 4 columns. Between them they must take one column each, in some order, so every other colour is shut out of all of them: 10 squares come off in one stroke.
Step 7. Wherever slate ends up among its 6 squares, the same squares fall within reach of it — 1 square in total, impossible regardless of how the colour resolves.
Step 8. All of the orange region's remaining squares (2 open squares) lie in column 6. Its queen therefore has to be somewhere in that column, which means no other colour may use it: 5 squares come off.
Step 9. The slate region has 3 squares left, spread across rows 5 and 7, columns 4 and 5. You do not need to know which of them takes the queen: every one of those options attacks the same 2 squares, so they can be crossed out now.
The board after step 9 — 1 of 11 queens placed. Step 10. Row 4 has a single open square left, at column 10 in the mint region. Every row needs a queen, so this one is forced. Row 4 and column 10 are now spoken for, along with the squares touching that queen.
Step 11. Scan column 7 and only row 1, column 7 remains — a indigo square. Every column takes a queen, so it takes this one. Cross out the whole of row 1 and column 7, the remaining indigo squares, and the ring of neighbours around row 1, column 7.
Step 12. The amber region is down to one open square, at row 2, column 11. Every colour holds exactly one queen, so that square is forced. Row 2 and column 11 are now spoken for, along with the squares touching that queen.
Step 13. Wherever khaki ends up among its 5 squares, the same squares fall within reach of it — 1 square in total, impossible regardless of how the colour resolves.
Step 14. The sea green region is down to one open square, at row 10, column 9. Every colour holds exactly one queen, so that square is forced. Cross out the whole of row 10 and column 9, the remaining sea green squares, and the ring of neighbours around row 10, column 9.
The board after step 14 — 5 of 11 queens placed. Step 15. Only row 8, column 8 is still open in khaki, and since each colour must take a queen, that settles it. Everything else in row 8, in column 8, in khaki and in the ring around that square is now dead.
Step 16. The orange region is down to one open square, at row 9, column 6. Every colour holds exactly one queen, so that square is forced. Row 9 and column 6 are now spoken for, along with the squares touching that queen.
Step 17. Red is down to 4 candidates in rows 5–7, columns 2 and 3, and they overlap enough to cover 1 square elsewhere. Cross those out without deciding anything about red itself.
Step 18. From here the board cascades. Keep alternating the region sweep and the line sweep and 4 queens fall out in order without any new idea being needed: row 6 is down to one square, putting a queen on row 6, column 2; pale yellow has one square left, so its queen takes row 7, column 4; slate has one square left, so its queen takes row 5, column 5; blue has one square left, so its queen takes row 3, column 3. 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 3, column 3.
The board after step 18 — 11 of 11 queens placed.
That completes the board: 11 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 11x11 Queens puzzle #154
Board #154 of the 11x11 bank carries a hard rating. Its 121 squares are shared between eleven colored regions, and the solution places eleven queens: one per row, one per column, one per region, none of them side by side or corner to corner.
As with every puzzle in this collection, #154 has a single verified solution and needs no guesswork. Each queen follows from something already visible. What the board controls is tempo — how soon the first forced move shows up and how far apart the rest are spaced — and that is a direct consequence of how these colors are cut.
How the colors divide this board
From smallest to largest, the regions on puzzle #154 are: teal (1 square), amber (4 squares), indigo (5 squares), orange (5 squares), khaki (8 squares), mint (9 squares), pale yellow (13 squares), blue (14 squares), red (19 squares), sea green (19 squares), slate (24 squares). An even split would hand every color 11 squares, so the teal region is running 10 squares under that average while the slate region is the roomiest area on the grid with 24 squares.
That imbalance is the first thing to read, because every region takes exactly one queen regardless of how much space it owns. Teal has only 1 place to put its queen; slate has 24. The spread between them on this board is 23 squares, and the wider that spread runs, the more it pays to solve from the small end inward.
Look at arrangement as well as area. Teal is the densest region on this grid at 100% of a 1×1 frame; sea green is the loosest, occupying only 39% of its 7×7 frame. The loose one reaches into more rows and columns, which is exactly why it usually settles last.
Region by region
Here is the full footprint of every color on puzzle #154, smallest first. Reading these spans before you place anything is the quickest way to see which parts of the grid are genuinely contested.
Teal covers 1 square, spanning 1 row and 1 column (rows 11–11, columns 1–1). It never leaves row 11, so its queen is locked to that row.
Amber occupies 4 squares within rows 1–3, columns 10–11.
Indigo: 5 squares across rows 1–2, columns 7–10.
Orange covers 5 squares, spanning 3 rows and 3 columns (rows 8–10, columns 6–8).
Khaki occupies 8 squares within rows 4–9, columns 8–10.
Mint: 9 squares across rows 2–5, columns 7–11.
Pale yellow covers 13 squares, spanning 7 rows and 4 columns (rows 5–11, columns 3–6).
Blue occupies 14 squares within rows 1–4, columns 1–5.
Red: 19 squares across rows 4–11, columns 1–3.
Sea green covers 19 squares, spanning 7 rows and 7 columns (rows 5–11, columns 5–11).
Slate occupies 24 squares within rows 1–8, columns 3–8.
Where to start on this board
Begin where the choices are fewest. On this board that means teal, which owns just 1 square inside a 1×1 window running from row 11 to row 11 and column 1 to column 1. A queen is guaranteed somewhere in there, so every line that window crosses is under pressure from the very first move.
Because teal never leaves row 11, its queen must be in that row — and that instantly settles row 11 for everyone else. Sweep along it and X out every square that is not teal. 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 #154
A quick way to find the next move is to count how many different colors touch each line. On this board, rows 1, 3, 10 and 11 are the narrowest, touched by only 4 colors. Column 2 is the tightest column, with 2 colors.
Count colors per line and you have a ranking of where to look. The narrowest rows here see only 4 colors, so one of that handful must take the row and the rest are squeezed into the other 10 rows. Row 8 sits at the far end with 6 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 eleven colors looking for one with a single square left; sweep the eleven rows and eleven columns looking for the same. Each sweep feeds the next, and switching between them deliberately — rather than drifting — is what separates a fast 11x11 solve from a stalled one.
Say the reason out loud: "this region has one square left", "this column has one square left". If no such sentence is available, the eliminating is not finished. One more pass of X marks is almost always quicker than committing to a placement you cannot defend.
Why puzzle #154 is rated hard
The rating reflects how much the board concedes up front. Puzzle #154 has two regions confined to a single row or column, its smallest color holds 1 square, its tightest row meets just 4 colors, and the gap between its largest and smallest regions is 23 squares. Flat, lopsided boards open quickly; even, sprawling ones make you earn the first placement.
Nothing about the rating involves computation or chance. Each grid has a single solution reachable by pure logic; the rating simply measures how far ahead you have to reason. Easy boards resolve a queen every step or two, while hard ones can ask you to carry three unfinished lines of thought before any of them pays off.
A board that feels above its rating is nearly always a board with a missing X. Audit every queen on the grid: full row cleared, full column cleared, all eight touching squares cleared. Diagonals are the common omission, and missing one is far more often the cause of a stall than any genuine difficulty in the puzzle.
Techniques that work well at 11x11
At 11x11 you are managing 121 squares, and holding the whole board in your head will not work. Split it into quadrants and solve locally. Most useful deductions on a grid this large are regional — a color pinched between two placed queens, or a band of rows that two regions must share. Trust the marks on the board over your memory.
One pattern is worth learning at every size, and it is available here. When two regions can only fit inside the same two rows, they must take one row each — which locks every other region out of both. The same argument works for columns, and for any matching count: three regions sharing three rows, four sharing four. Spotting these pairings turns a slow grind into a quick cascade, and on #154 the place to look for one is around column 2.
Use this as a rough check on your progress: the completed board has 3 queens around the border and 8 queens in the middle, including 1 in a corner. Solutions spread out; if yours is bunching up in one region of the grid, retrace a few moves.
Frequently asked questions
How hard is 11x11 Queens puzzle #154?
Puzzle #154 is rated hard. Its smallest color region holds 1 square, its tightest row is touched by 4 colors, and two of its regions are confined to a single row or column, which gives you a forced move early.
Does 11x11 puzzle #154 have only one solution?
Yes. Every puzzle in the 11x11 collection, including #154, has been verified to have exactly one valid arrangement of eleven queens, and it can always be reached by logic alone — no guessing or backtracking needed.
Where should I place my first queen on puzzle #154?
Start with the teal region — the most constrained color on this board, with 1 square spanning rows 11–11 and columns 1–1. 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.