10x10 Queens Puzzle #297
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 13-step reasoning is written out below.
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Step-by-step solution for puzzle #297
What follows is a complete solve of puzzle #297, worked the way a person works it rather than the way a computer does. It runs to 13 deductions — 10 queen placements and 3 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 region shadow.
Techniques this board needs: last square in a region, region confined to one line, region shadow.
Show the full walkthrough (10 steps) — contains the solution
Step 1. Only row 10, column 6 is still open in sea green, and since each colour must take a queen, that settles it. That clears row 10, column 6, the rest of the sea green region and every square adjacent to it — diagonals included.
Step 2. The slate region is down to one open square, at row 5, column 7. Every colour holds exactly one queen, so that square is forced. Cross out the whole of row 5 and column 7, the remaining slate squares, and the ring of neighbours around row 5, column 7.
Step 3. 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.
The board after step 3 — 3 of 10 queens placed. Step 4. All of the indigo region's remaining squares (2 open squares) lie in row 1. Its queen therefore has to be somewhere on that row, which means no other colour may use it: 7 squares come off.
Step 5. Only row 2, column 3 is still open in amber, and since each colour must take a queen, that settles it. That clears row 2, column 3, the rest of the amber region and every square adjacent to it — diagonals included.
Step 6. The indigo region is down to one open square, at row 1, column 1. Every colour holds exactly one queen, so that square is forced. Cross out the whole of row 1 and column 1, the remaining indigo squares, and the ring of neighbours around row 1, column 1.
Step 7. Only row 4, column 5 is still open in mint, and since each colour must take a queen, that settles it. Everything else in row 4, in column 5, in mint and in the ring around that square is now dead.
The board after step 7 — 6 of 10 queens placed. Step 8. Pale yellow is down to 2 candidates in rows 7 and 9, columns 2 and 4, and they overlap enough to cover 2 squares elsewhere. Cross those out without deciding anything about pale yellow itself.
Step 9. Red cannot leave row 6 — every one of its open squares (2 open squares) sits there. That row belongs to red, so every square on it owned by another colour is dead: 2 squares in all.
Step 10. 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 10; blue has one square left, so its queen takes row 3, column 9; pale yellow has one square left, so its queen takes row 7, column 2; red has one square left, so its queen takes row 6, column 4. 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 4.
The board after step 10 — 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 #297
Puzzle #297 is one of the easy-rated boards in the 10x10 set. Ten colors divide its 100 squares, and you win by placing ten queens so that each row, each column and each color holds exactly one, with no two queens adjacent in any direction.
As with every puzzle in this collection, #297 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 #297 are: sea green (1 square), indigo (2 squares), slate (2 squares), amber (4 squares), mint (6 squares), pale yellow (9 squares), khaki (9 squares), orange (14 squares), blue (21 squares), red (32 squares). An even split would hand every color 10 squares, so the sea green region is running 9 squares under that average while the red region is the roomiest area on the grid with 32 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 red with 32. A 31-square gap like this one rewards players who start where the choices are fewest.
Shape matters as much as size. The indigo region is the most compact color here, filling 100% of the 1×2 box that encloses it, while orange is the most scattered at 58% of its 6×4 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
The complete breakdown of each region on this board follows, ordered from tightest to roomiest. Skimming the spans first tells you where the board is crowded and where it has slack.
Sea green: 1 square across rows 10–10, columns 6–6. It never leaves row 10, so its queen is locked to that row.
Indigo covers 2 squares, spanning 1 row and 2 columns (rows 1–1, columns 1–2). It never leaves row 1, so its queen is locked to that row.
Slate occupies 2 squares within rows 5–5, columns 6–7. It never leaves row 5, so its queen is locked to that row.
Amber: 4 squares across rows 1–2, columns 2–4.
Mint covers 6 squares, spanning 4 rows and 2 columns (rows 1–4, columns 5–6).
Pale yellow occupies 9 squares within rows 7–9, columns 1–4.
Khaki: 9 squares across rows 6–9, columns 6–8.
Orange covers 14 squares, spanning 6 rows and 4 columns (rows 5–10, columns 7–10).
Blue occupies 21 squares within rows 1–7, columns 6–10.
Red: 32 squares across rows 2–10, columns 1–5.
Where to start on this board
Begin where the choices are fewest. On this board that means sea green, which owns just 1 square inside a 1×1 window running from row 10 to row 10 and column 6 to column 6. A queen is guaranteed somewhere in there, so every line that window crosses is under pressure from the very first move.
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. Indigo, slate and amber 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 #297
A quick way to find the next move is to count how many different colors touch each line. On this board, rows 3, 4 and 10 are the narrowest, touched by only 3 colors. Columns 5, 9 and 10 are the tightest columns, with 2 colors.
A line with few colors is a line close to resolving. Where only 3 colors appear, one of them owns the row outright and the others must fit into the remaining 9 rows. Row 7 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.
Two checks, run alternately, will carry you through the 100 squares of this grid. First: has any of the ten regions been reduced to a single open square? Second: has any row or column? Either answer forces a queen. Players who stall on 10x10 boards almost always run one of those checks and forget the other.
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 #297 is rated easy
Ratings track how generous the opening is. On #297 you get four regions pinned to a single row or column, a smallest color of 1 square, a tightest row crossed by 3 colors, and a 31-square gap between the largest and smallest regions. Those four numbers largely explain the easy label.
Difficulty in Queens is never arithmetic and never luck. Every board has one solution and none require guessing. What varies is the length of the chain you must follow before the next queen becomes certain — one or two steps on an easy board, five or six on a hard one, sometimes with several partial eliminations held in play at once.
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 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 #297, start hunting for it near column 5.
A non-spoiling distribution check: solved, #297 carries 3 queens on the perimeter against 7 queens inside, 1 of them cornered. 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 #297?
Puzzle #297 is rated easy. Its smallest color region holds 1 square, its tightest row is touched by 3 colors, and four of its regions are confined to a single row or column, which gives you a forced move early.
Does 10x10 puzzle #297 have only one solution?
Yes. Every puzzle in the 10x10 collection, including #297, 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 #297?
Start with the sea green region — the most constrained color on this board, with 1 square spanning rows 10–10 and columns 6–6. Narrowing the smallest region first removes the most squares elsewhere on the grid.