Daily Queens Game — Wednesday, August 26, 2026
Wednesday, August 26, 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 #10
What follows is a complete solve of puzzle #10, worked the way a person works it rather than the way a computer does. It runs to 17 deductions — 9 queen placements and 8 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 confined to one line, region shadow, pairing argument on rows, pairing argument on columns, last square in a row.
Show the full walkthrough (10 steps) — contains the solution
Step 1. Only row 1, column 1 is still open in indigo, and since each colour must take a queen, that settles it. That clears row 1, column 1, the rest of the indigo region and every square adjacent to it — diagonals included.
Step 2. All of the amber region's remaining squares (2 open squares) lie in row 2. Its queen therefore has to be somewhere on that row, which means no other colour may use it: 7 squares come off.
Step 3. Mint cannot leave column 9 — every one of its open squares (2 open squares) sits there. That column belongs to mint, so every square in it owned by another colour is dead: 6 squares in all.
The board after step 3 — 1 of 9 queens placed. Step 4. Wherever khaki ends up among its 4 squares, the same squares fall within reach of it — 1 square in total, impossible regardless of how the colour resolves.
Step 5. Blue, mint, and slate are now boxed into rows 3–5 and nothing else. That is 3 colours needing 3 rows, so they fill those rows between them — which locks every remaining colour out and removes 4 squares at once.
Step 6. All of the red region's remaining squares (3 open squares) lie in row 6. Its queen therefore has to be somewhere on that row, which means no other colour may use it: 5 squares come off.
Step 7. Amber, red, and khaki are now boxed into columns 6–8 and nothing else. That is 3 colours needing 3 columns, so they fill those columns between them — which locks every remaining colour out and removes 7 squares at once.
The board after step 7 — 1 of 9 queens placed. Step 8. All of the orange region's remaining squares (2 open squares) lie in column 5. Its queen therefore has to be somewhere in that column, which means no other colour may use it: 6 squares come off.
Step 9. Blue cannot leave column 2 — every one of its open squares (2 open squares) sits there. That column belongs to blue, so every square in it owned by another colour is dead: 6 squares in all.
Step 10. From here the board cascades. Keep alternating the region sweep and the line sweep and 8 queens fall out in order without any new idea being needed: row 5 is down to one square, putting a queen on row 5, column 3; blue has one square left, so its queen takes row 3, column 2; mint has one square left, so its queen takes row 4, column 9; pale yellow has one square left, so its queen takes row 7, column 4; khaki has one square left, so its queen takes row 8, column 8; amber has one square left, so its queen takes row 2, column 7; red has one square left, so its queen takes row 6, column 6; orange has one square left, so its queen takes row 9, column 5. 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 9, column 5.
The board after step 10 — 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 #10
Board #10 of the 9x9 bank carries a hard rating. Its 81 squares are shared between nine colored regions, and the solution places nine 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, #10 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 #10 are: indigo (1 square), amber (4 squares), mint (5 squares), orange (7 squares), slate (8 squares), red (8 squares), khaki (9 squares), pale yellow (19 squares), blue (20 squares). An even split would hand every color 9 squares, so the indigo region is running 8 squares under that average while the blue region is the roomiest area on the grid with 20 squares.
That imbalance is the first thing to read, because every region takes exactly one queen regardless of how much space it owns. Indigo has only 1 place to put its queen; blue has 20. The spread between them on this board is 19 squares, and the wider that spread runs, the more it pays to solve from the small end inward.
Shape matters as much as size. The indigo region is the most compact color here, filling 100% of the 1×1 box that encloses it, while khaki is the most scattered at 45% of its 5×4 box. Compact regions are easy to eliminate around; straggling ones reach into more rows and columns and tend to stay unresolved until late.
Region by region
Here is the full footprint of every color on puzzle #10, smallest first. Reading these spans before you place anything is the quickest way to see which parts of the grid are genuinely contested.
Indigo covers 1 square, spanning 1 row and 1 column (rows 1–1, columns 1–1). It never leaves row 1, so its queen is locked to that row.
Amber occupies 4 squares within rows 1–2, columns 7–8.
Mint: 5 squares across rows 1–4, columns 8–9.
Orange covers 7 squares, spanning 2 rows and 4 columns (rows 8–9, columns 5–8).
Slate occupies 8 squares within rows 3–5, columns 1–4.
Red: 8 squares across rows 3–6, columns 6–8.
Khaki covers 9 squares, spanning 5 rows and 4 columns (rows 5–9, columns 6–9).
Pale yellow occupies 19 squares within rows 5–9, columns 1–5.
Blue: 20 squares across rows 1–5, columns 1–6.
Where to start on this board
Open on the tightest color. Here that is indigo, confined to 1 square between rows 1 and 1 and columns 1 and 1. Its queen has nowhere else to go, which means those 1 row and 1 column carry more constraint than anywhere else on #10.
Because indigo never leaves row 1, its queen must be in that row — and that instantly settles row 1 for everyone else. Sweep along it and X out every square that is not indigo. 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. Amber and orange are no more than two rows tall, so their queens are 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 #10
A quick way to find the next move is to count how many different colors touch each line. On this board, row 7 is the narrowest, touched by only 2 colors. Column 9 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 2 colors, so one of that handful must take the row and the rest are squeezed into the other 8 rows. Row 5 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.
A placement without a reason is a guess. Because this board has exactly one solution, a guess that happens to be wrong will not announce itself for several moves — and unwinding it is slower than simply finishing the eliminations first.
Why puzzle #10 is rated hard
The rating reflects how much the board concedes up front. Puzzle #10 has two regions confined to a single row or column, its smallest color holds 1 square, its tightest row meets just 2 colors, and the gap between its largest and smallest regions is 19 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 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.
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 #10 the place to look for one is around row 7.
Use this as a rough check on your progress: the completed board has 3 queens around the border and 6 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 9x9 Queens puzzle #10?
Puzzle #10 is rated hard. Its smallest color region holds 1 square, its tightest row is touched by 2 colors, and two of its regions are confined to a single row or column, which gives you a forced move early.
Does 9x9 puzzle #10 have only one solution?
Yes. Every puzzle in the 9x9 collection, including #10, 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 #10?
Start with the indigo region — the most constrained color on this board, with 1 square spanning rows 1–1 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.