10x10 Queens Puzzle #234
Difficulty: easy. Place 10 queens on this 10x10 board so that no two share a row, column or color region and none touch — including diagonally. This puzzle has exactly one solution, and it has been verified solvable by deduction alone: the complete 17-step reasoning is written out below.
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Step-by-step solution for puzzle #234
What follows is a complete solve of puzzle #234, worked the way a person works it rather than the way a computer does. It runs to 17 deductions — 10 queen placements and 7 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 row, last square in a column.
Show the full walkthrough (11 steps) — contains the solution
Step 1. Only row 10, column 3 is still open in sea green, and since each colour must take a queen, that settles it. That clears row 10, column 3, the rest of the sea green region and every square adjacent to it — diagonals included.
Step 2. Amber is down to 3 candidates in rows 1 and 2, columns 1 and 2, and they overlap enough to cover 2 squares elsewhere. Cross those out without deciding anything about amber itself.
Step 3. The blue region has 4 squares left, spread across rows 3–5, columns 6 and 7. 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.
Step 4. All of the red region's remaining squares (4 open squares) lie in column 1. Its queen therefore has to be somewhere in that column, which means no other colour may use it: 4 squares come off.
The board after step 4 — 1 of 10 queens placed. Step 5. Only row 2, column 2 is still open in amber, and since each colour must take a queen, that settles it. That clears row 2, column 2, the rest of the amber region and every square adjacent to it — diagonals included.
Step 6. The mint region has 4 squares left, spread across rows 4–6, 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.
Step 7. Khaki cannot leave column 10 — every one of its open squares (2 open squares) sits there. That column belongs to khaki, so every square in it owned by another colour is dead: 8 squares in all.
The board after step 7 — 2 of 10 queens placed. Step 8. Every open square left in row 1 (6 open squares) belongs to the indigo region. Since that row must contain a queen, indigo is the colour that supplies it — so indigo squares anywhere else on the board are out, 8 squares in all.
Step 9. 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 3 is down to one square, putting a queen on row 3, column 7; row 4 is down to one square, putting a queen on row 4, column 4; row 5 is down to one square, putting a queen on row 5, column 8; column 9 is down to one square, putting a queen on row 1, column 9. 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 1, column 9.
Step 10. Wherever pale yellow 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 11. 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: orange has one square left, so its queen takes row 9, column 6; pale yellow has one square left, so its queen takes row 7, column 5; khaki has one square left, so its queen takes row 8, column 10; red has one square left, so its queen takes row 6, 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 6, column 1.
The board after step 11 — 10 of 10 queens placed.
That completes the board: 10 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 10x10 Queens puzzle #234
Board #234 of the 10x10 bank carries a easy rating. Its 100 squares are shared between ten colored regions, and the solution places ten queens: one per row, one per column, one per region, none of them side by side or corner to corner.
Like every board on this site, #234 has been verified to have exactly one valid solution, and that solution is reachable by deduction alone. You never have to guess and then unwind; every queen can be justified by something already visible on the grid. What changes from puzzle to puzzle is where the first certainty appears and how long the chain of reasoning runs before the next one — and that is entirely a product of how these particular colors are shaped.
How the colors divide this board
From smallest to largest, the regions on puzzle #234 are: sea green (1 square), khaki (2 squares), amber (4 squares), blue (4 squares), red (7 squares), slate (11 squares), mint (12 squares), orange (15 squares), pale yellow (19 squares), indigo (25 squares). An even split would hand every color 10 squares, so the sea green region is running 9 squares under that average while the indigo region is the roomiest area on the grid with 25 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 sea green, with 1 square, is under far more pressure than indigo with 25. A 24-square gap like this one rewards players who start where the choices are fewest.
Shape matters as much as size. The khaki region is the most compact color here, filling 100% of the 2×1 box that encloses it, while pale yellow is the most scattered at 53% of its 6×6 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
Each region's exact extent on this grid is listed below, starting with the most constrained. Knowing which lines a color can and cannot reach is most of the work on a easy board.
Sea green: 1 square across rows 10–10, columns 3–3. It never leaves row 10, so its queen is locked to that row.
Khaki covers 2 squares, spanning 2 rows and 1 column (rows 8–9, columns 10–10). It sits wholly inside column 10, so its queen must be in that column.
Amber occupies 4 squares within rows 1–2, columns 1–3.
Blue: 4 squares across rows 3–5, columns 6–7.
Red covers 7 squares, spanning 5 rows and 2 columns (rows 6–10, columns 1–2).
Slate occupies 11 squares within rows 2–7, columns 8–10.
Mint: 12 squares across rows 3–6, columns 1–5.
Orange covers 15 squares, spanning 4 rows and 6 columns (rows 7–10, columns 5–10).
Pale yellow occupies 19 squares within rows 5–10, columns 2–7.
Indigo: 25 squares across rows 1–5, columns 2–10.
Where to start on this board
The most constrained color is where a solve should begin, and on #234 that is sea green with 1 square. It reaches from row 10 to row 10 and from column 3 to column 3 — 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 sea green never leaves row 10, its queen must be in that row — and that instantly settles row 10 for everyone else. Sweep along it and X out every square that is not sea green. 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 khaki 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 #234
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 2 colors. Columns 1, 4, 8 and 9 are the tightest columns, with 3 colors.
A line with few colors is a line close to resolving. Where only 2 colors appear, one of them owns the row outright and the others must fit into the remaining 9 rows. Row 5 is the crowded extreme at 5 colors — worth revisiting later, not now.
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.
Keep alternating between two views of the board. In the region view you ask which of the ten colors is down to one open square. In the line view you ask the same of each row and column. Both produce forced queens, and each placement refreshes the other view, so cycling between them deliberately is how a 10x10 board unwinds.
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 #234 is rated easy
The easy label comes out of four measurable things about #234: three of its regions are locked to one row or column, its smallest color spans 1 square, its least crowded row meets 2 colors, and its largest and smallest regions differ by 24. Boards that score tight on those measures give up their first queen fast.
The scale has nothing to do with maths or luck — every puzzle here is solvable by deduction and has exactly one answer. It measures reasoning depth: how many eliminations must stack up before a placement becomes provable. That depth is what separates a easy board from the rest.
If #234 feels harder than its rating suggests, the usual culprit is incomplete marking rather than a difficult deduction. Check that every queen already on the grid has its full cross of eliminations recorded — including the diagonal neighbours, which are by far the easiest to miss. More stalled solves come from one forgotten diagonal X than from any genuinely deep chain of logic.
Techniques that work well at 10x10
At 10x10 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 #234, start hunting for it near row 1.
A non-spoiling distribution check: solved, #234 carries 4 queens on the perimeter against 6 queens inside, with the corners empty. Because no two queens may touch, real solutions always look fairly evenly spread — a lopsided board in progress is a warning sign.
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.
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Questions about this puzzle
How hard is 10x10 Queens puzzle #234?
Puzzle #234 is rated easy. Its smallest color region holds 1 square, its tightest row is touched by 2 colors, and three of its regions are confined to a single row or column, which gives you a forced move early.
Does 10x10 puzzle #234 have only one solution?
Yes. Every puzzle in the 10x10 collection, including #234, has been verified to have exactly one valid arrangement of ten queens, and it can always be reached by logic alone — no guessing or backtracking needed.
Where should I place my first queen on puzzle #234?
Start with the sea green region — the most constrained color on this board, with 1 square spanning rows 10–10 and columns 3–3. Narrowing the smallest region first removes the most squares elsewhere on the grid.