11x11 Queens Puzzle #294
Difficulty: medium. 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 14-step reasoning is written out below.
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Step-by-step solution for puzzle #294
What follows is a complete solve of puzzle #294, worked the way a person works it rather than the way a computer does. It runs to 14 deductions — 11 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 (11 steps) — contains the solution
Step 1. Only row 8, column 9 is still open in khaki, and since each colour must take a queen, that settles it. That clears row 8, column 9, the rest of the khaki region and every square adjacent to it — diagonals included.
Step 2. 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: 10 squares come off.
Step 3. 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: amber has one square left, so its queen takes row 2, column 1; indigo has one square left, so its queen takes row 1, column 3; mint has one square left, so its queen takes row 4, column 2; blue has one square left, so its queen takes row 3, 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 3, column 4.
Step 4. Wherever slate 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.
The board after step 4 — 5 of 11 queens placed. Step 5. The pale yellow region is down to one open square, at row 7, column 5. Every colour holds exactly one queen, so that square is forced. Row 7 and column 5 are now spoken for, along with the squares touching that queen.
Step 6. Only row 5, column 6 is still open in slate, and since each colour must take a queen, that settles it. That clears row 5, column 6, the rest of the slate region and every square adjacent to it — diagonals included.
Step 7. The red region is down to one open square, at row 6, column 10. Every colour holds exactly one queen, so that square is forced. Cross out the whole of row 6 and column 10, the remaining red squares, and the ring of neighbours around row 6, column 10.
The board after step 7 — 8 of 11 queens placed. Step 8. Orange is down to 3 candidates in rows 9 and 10, columns 7 and 8, and they overlap enough to cover 1 square elsewhere. Cross those out without deciding anything about orange itself.
Step 9. The teal region is down to one open square, at row 11, column 8. Every colour holds exactly one queen, so that square is forced. Row 11 and column 8 are now spoken for, along with the squares touching that queen.
Step 10. Only row 9, column 7 is still open in orange, and since each colour must take a queen, that settles it. That clears row 9, column 7, the rest of the orange region and every square adjacent to it — diagonals included.
Step 11. The sea green region is down to one open square, at row 10, column 11. Every colour holds exactly one queen, so that square is forced. Cross out the whole of row 10 and column 11, the remaining sea green squares, and the ring of neighbours around row 10, column 11.
The board after step 11 — 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 #294
Board #294 of the 11x11 bank carries a medium 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.
Like every board on this site, #294 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 #294 are: khaki (1 square), indigo (2 squares), pale yellow (2 squares), amber (3 squares), teal (4 squares), mint (5 squares), sea green (9 squares), blue (12 squares), red (19 squares), orange (31 squares), slate (33 squares). An even split would hand every color 11 squares, so the khaki region is running 10 squares under that average while the slate region is the roomiest area on the grid with 33 squares.
That imbalance is the first thing to read, because every region takes exactly one queen regardless of how much space it owns. Khaki has only 1 place to put its queen; slate has 33. The spread between them on this board is 32 squares, and the wider that spread runs, the more it pays to solve from the small end inward.
Square count is only half the story — how a color is arranged counts too. Indigo is the tidiest shape on #294, packing 100% of its 1×2 bounding box, whereas slate straggles across its 9×8 box at just 46%. Tidy blocks are easy to work around; scattered ones touch more lines and resist resolution.
Region by region
Below is every color on #294 with its exact reach, smallest region first. It is worth a slow read: the spans reveal which rows and columns several regions are fighting over.
Khaki: 1 square across rows 8–8, columns 9–9. It never leaves row 8, so its queen is locked to that row.
Indigo covers 2 squares, spanning 1 row and 2 columns (rows 1–1, columns 2–3). It never leaves row 1, so its queen is locked to that row.
Pale yellow occupies 2 squares within rows 6–7, columns 5–5. It sits wholly inside column 5, so its queen must be in that column.
Amber: 3 squares across rows 1–2, columns 1–2.
Teal covers 4 squares, spanning 1 row and 4 columns (rows 11–11, columns 7–10). It never leaves row 11, so its queen is locked to that row.
Mint occupies 5 squares within rows 3–6, columns 1–2.
Sea green: 9 squares across rows 6–11, columns 10–11.
Blue covers 12 squares, spanning 4 rows and 5 columns (rows 1–4, columns 2–6).
Red occupies 19 squares within rows 1–7, columns 9–11.
Orange: 31 squares across rows 5–11, columns 1–9.
Slate covers 33 squares, spanning 9 rows and 8 columns (rows 1–9, columns 1–8).
Where to start on this board
Begin where the choices are fewest. On this board that means khaki, which owns just 1 square inside a 1×1 window running from row 8 to row 8 and column 9 to column 9. A queen is guaranteed somewhere in there, so every line that window crosses is under pressure from the very first move.
Because khaki never leaves row 8, its queen must be in that row — and that instantly settles row 8 for everyone else. Sweep along it and X out every square that is not khaki. 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, teal, amber and pale yellow 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 #294
A quick way to find the next move is to count how many different colors touch each line. On this board, row 10 is the narrowest, touched by only 2 colors. Column 11 is the tightest column, with 2 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 10 rows. Row 6 is the crowded extreme at 6 colors — worth revisiting later, not now.
Working through the middle game
Past the opening, treat this as an elimination exercise rather than a placement exercise. Each queen takes out a row, a column and its eight neighbours, and the value of a move is measured by how much it removes. Cross everything out as you go and let the board do the remembering.
Keep alternating between two views of the board. In the region view you ask which of the eleven 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 11x11 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 #294 is rated medium
What earns a board its rating is the shape of its opening. Here that opening offers five single-line regions, a 1-square smallest color, a tightest row touched by 2 colors, and a region-size spread of 32. Lopsided grids with flat regions fall quickly; balanced ones like this take more patience.
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 medium board from the rest.
If #294 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 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 #294 the place to look for one is around row 10.
A non-spoiling distribution check: solved, #294 carries 4 queens on the perimeter against 7 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 11x11 Queens puzzle #294?
Puzzle #294 is rated medium. Its smallest color region holds 1 square, its tightest row is touched by 2 colors, and five of its regions are confined to a single row or column, which gives you a forced move early.
Does 11x11 puzzle #294 have only one solution?
Yes. Every puzzle in the 11x11 collection, including #294, 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 #294?
Start with the khaki region — the most constrained color on this board, with 1 square spanning rows 8–8 and columns 9–9. Narrowing the smallest region first removes the most squares elsewhere on the grid.