11x11 Queens Puzzle #288
Difficulty: easy. Place 11 queens on this 11x11 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 20-step reasoning is written out below.
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Step-by-step solution for puzzle #288
What follows is a complete solve of puzzle #288, worked the way a person works it rather than the way a computer does. It runs to 20 deductions — 11 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 pairing argument on columns.
Techniques this board needs: last square in a region, region shadow, region confined to one line, pairing argument on rows, line confined to one region, pairing argument on columns.
Show the full walkthrough (13 steps) — contains the solution
Step 1. Only row 5, column 11 is still open in slate, and since each colour must take a queen, that settles it. That clears row 5, column 11, the rest of the slate region and every square adjacent to it — diagonals included.
Step 2. The khaki region is down to one open square, at row 8, column 3. Every colour holds exactly one queen, so that square is forced. Cross out the whole of row 8 and column 3, the remaining khaki squares, and the ring of neighbours around row 8, column 3.
Step 3. The amber region has 4 squares left, spread across rows 1–3, columns 1 and 2. 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. Wherever mint 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.
The board after step 4 — 2 of 11 queens placed. Step 5. Orange cannot leave column 6 — every one of its open squares (3 open squares) sits there. That column belongs to orange, so every square in it owned by another colour is dead: 8 squares in all.
Step 6. The teal region has 4 squares left, spread across rows 9–11, columns 1 and 2. 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 7. Orange, sea green, and teal are now boxed into rows 9–11 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 9 squares at once.
Step 8. The pale yellow region is down to one open square, at row 7, column 10. Every colour holds exactly one queen, so that square is forced. Row 7 and column 10 are now spoken for, along with the squares touching that queen.
Step 9. 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: 3 squares in all.
The board after step 9 — 3 of 11 queens placed. Step 10. Every open square left in column 5 (5 open squares) belongs to the blue region. Since that column must contain a queen, blue is the colour that supplies it — so blue squares anywhere else on the board are out, 10 squares in all.
Step 11. Indigo, mint, and red are now boxed into rows 1, 4, and 6 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 12. Here is the pairing argument. The amber and teal regions have no open squares outside columns 1 and 2 — 2 colours confined to 2 columns. Between them they must take one column each, in some order, so every other colour is shut out of all of them: 4 squares come off in one stroke.
Step 13. 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: indigo has one square left, so its queen takes row 1, column 4; blue has one square left, so its queen takes row 3, column 5; amber has one square left, so its queen takes row 2, column 1; mint has one square left, so its queen takes row 4, column 9; teal has one square left, so its queen takes row 11, column 2; sea green has one square left, so its queen takes row 10, column 8; red has one square left, so its queen takes row 6, column 7; orange has one square left, so its queen takes row 9, column 6. 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 6.
The board after step 13 — 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 #288
This is puzzle number 288 in the 11x11 collection, rated easy. The grid holds 121 squares split between eleven colored regions, and a finished board carries eleven queens — one in every row, one in every column, one in every color, and never two of them touching, diagonals included.
Puzzle #288 has been checked to admit exactly one arrangement of queens, and every step toward it is deducible from what is already on the board. There is no point at which you are expected to pick a square and hope. The only thing that differs between boards is how quickly the first certainty surfaces, and that depends entirely on the shapes the colors happen to take here.
How the colors divide this board
From smallest to largest, the regions on puzzle #288 are: slate (1 square), khaki (1 square), orange (3 squares), amber (4 squares), sea green (8 squares), teal (8 squares), mint (10 squares), pale yellow (15 squares), indigo (19 squares), blue (24 squares), red (28 squares). An even split would hand every color 11 squares, so the slate region is running 10 squares under that average while the red region is the roomiest area on the grid with 28 squares.
Every color takes one queen and one only, whatever its size — which is why the 27 square difference between slate and red is worth noting before you touch the grid. The cramped colors resolve first and hand you information; the roomy ones absorb whatever is left over at the end.
A region's outline can constrain it more than its size does. Here slate is the most solid, filling 100% of its 1×1 box, and red the most diffuse at 44% of its 8×8 box. Solid blocks give clean eliminations; diffuse ones spread across the board and stay open longer.
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.
Slate: 1 square across rows 5–5, columns 11–11. It never leaves row 5, so its queen is locked to that row.
Khaki covers 1 square, spanning 1 row and 1 column (rows 8–8, columns 3–3). It never leaves row 8, so its queen is locked to that row.
Orange occupies 3 squares within rows 9–11, columns 6–6. It sits wholly inside column 6, so its queen must be in that column.
Amber: 4 squares across rows 1–3, columns 1–2.
Sea green covers 8 squares, spanning 2 rows and 5 columns (rows 10–11, columns 7–11).
Teal occupies 8 squares within rows 8–11, columns 1–3.
Mint: 10 squares across rows 1–4, columns 9–11.
Pale yellow covers 15 squares, spanning 6 rows and 4 columns (rows 5–10, columns 8–11).
Indigo occupies 19 squares within rows 1–8, columns 1–4.
Blue: 24 squares across rows 1–6, columns 4–9.
Red covers 28 squares, spanning 8 rows and 8 columns (rows 4–11, columns 2–9).
Where to start on this board
Open on the tightest color. Here that is slate, confined to 1 square between rows 5 and 5 and columns 11 and 11. Its queen has nowhere else to go, which means those 1 row and 1 column carry more constraint than anywhere else on #288.
Because slate never leaves row 5, its queen must be in that row — and that instantly settles row 5 for everyone else. Sweep along it and X out every square that is not slate. 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. Khaki and sea green 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 #288
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 3 colors. Column 5 is the tightest column, with 2 colors.
Those lines matter because a row touched by few colors gives its queen away sooner. If a row meets only 3 colors, then one of those regions has to own it, and every other region is competing for the remaining 10 rows. By contrast row 10 meets 5 colors — the most crowded line here, and the one least likely to resolve early. Spend your attention accordingly.
Working through the middle game
The middle of #288 is where careless play costs time. Every queen you place kills a row, a column and the eight surrounding squares; if you do not mark all of that immediately, you will later "discover" a move that was available several turns ago. Mark first, then look.
Two checks, run alternately, will carry you through the 121 squares of this grid. First: has any of the eleven regions been reduced to a single open square? Second: has any row or column? Either answer forces a queen. Players who stall on 11x11 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 #288 is rated easy
The easy label comes out of four measurable things about #288: five of its regions are locked to one row or column, its smallest color spans 1 square, its least crowded row meets 3 colors, and its largest and smallest regions differ by 27. Boards that score tight on those measures give up their first queen fast.
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.
When a board plays tougher than its label, look for a missed mark before you look for a clever deduction. Walk back over every queen you have placed and confirm the full row, the full column and all eight surrounding squares are crossed out. The diagonal neighbours are the ones players skip, and a single skipped diagonal will hide the next forced move indefinitely.
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.
There is one technique that repays study at every grid size. Two regions restricted to the same two rows must occupy one row apiece, which excludes all other regions from those rows entirely; the identical logic applies to columns and to larger matched sets. It converts slow boards into fast ones, and the likeliest place to find it on #288 is column 5.
As a sanity check rather than a spoiler: the finished solution to #288 puts 4 queens on the outer border and 7 queens in the interior, with none in a corner. If your part-finished grid has queens bunched into one area while whole stretches sit empty, something probably went wrong a few moves back.
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 11x11 Queens puzzle #288?
Puzzle #288 is rated easy. Its smallest color region holds 1 square, its tightest row is touched by 3 colors, and five of its regions are confined to a single row or column, which gives you a forced move early.
Does 11x11 puzzle #288 have only one solution?
Yes. Every puzzle in the 11x11 collection, including #288, 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 #288?
Start with the slate region — the most constrained color on this board, with 1 square spanning rows 5–5 and columns 11–11. Narrowing the smallest region first removes the most squares elsewhere on the grid.