8x8 Queens Puzzle #246
Difficulty: hard. Place 8 queens on this 8x8 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 10-step reasoning is written out below.
Previous puzzle · All 8x8 puzzles · Next puzzle
Step-by-step solution for puzzle #246
What follows is a complete solve of puzzle #246, worked the way a person works it rather than the way a computer does. It runs to 10 deductions — 8 queen placements and 2 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 confined to one line.
Techniques this board needs: last square in a region, region confined to one line.
Show the full walkthrough (10 steps) — contains the solution
Step 1. Only row 1, column 8 is still open in indigo, and since each colour must take a queen, that settles it. That clears row 1, column 8, the rest of the indigo region and every square adjacent to it — diagonals included.
Step 2. The pale yellow region is down to one open square, at row 7, column 1. Every colour holds exactly one queen, so that square is forced. Cross out the whole of row 7 and column 1, the remaining pale yellow squares, and the ring of neighbours around row 7, column 1.
Step 3. Amber cannot leave row 2 — every one of its open squares (3 open squares) sits there. That row belongs to amber, so every square on it owned by another colour is dead: 3 squares in all.
The board after step 3 — 2 of 8 queens placed. Step 4. The mint region is down to one open square, at row 4, column 2. Every colour holds exactly one queen, so that square is forced. Row 4 and column 2 are now spoken for, along with the squares touching that queen.
Step 5. Only row 5, column 7 is still open in slate, and since each colour must take a queen, that settles it. That clears row 5, column 7, the rest of the slate region and every square adjacent to it — diagonals included.
Step 6. The red region is down to one open square, at row 6, column 3. Every colour holds exactly one queen, so that square is forced. Cross out the whole of row 6 and column 3, the remaining red squares, and the ring of neighbours around row 6, column 3.
Step 7. Amber cannot leave row 2 — every one of its open squares (2 open squares) sits there. That row belongs to amber, so every square on it owned by another colour is dead: 1 square in all.
The board after step 7 — 5 of 8 queens placed. Step 8. The blue region is down to one open square, at row 3, column 6. Every colour holds exactly one queen, so that square is forced. Row 3 and column 6 are now spoken for, along with the squares touching that queen.
Step 9. Only row 2, column 4 is still open in amber, and since each colour must take a queen, that settles it. That clears row 2, column 4, the rest of the amber region and every square adjacent to it — diagonals included.
Step 10. The khaki region is down to one open square, at row 8, column 5. Every colour holds exactly one queen, so that square is forced. Cross out the whole of row 8 and column 5, the remaining khaki squares, and the ring of neighbours around row 8, column 5.
The board after step 10 — 8 of 8 queens placed.
That completes the board: 8 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 8x8 Queens puzzle #246
Board #246 of the 8x8 bank carries a hard rating. Its 64 squares are shared between eight colored regions, and the solution places eight 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, #246 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 #246 are: indigo (1 square), pale yellow (1 square), slate (5 squares), amber (8 squares), mint (9 squares), red (11 squares), khaki (14 squares), blue (15 squares). An even split would hand every color 8 squares, so the indigo region is running 7 squares under that average while the blue region is the roomiest area on the grid with 15 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 indigo, with 1 square, is under far more pressure than blue with 15. A 14-square gap like this one rewards players who start where the choices are fewest.
A region's outline can constrain it more than its size does. Here indigo is the most solid, filling 100% of its 1×1 box, and blue the most diffuse at 54% of its 4×7 box. Solid blocks give clean eliminations; diffuse ones spread across the board and stay open longer.
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.
Indigo: 1 square across rows 1–1, columns 8–8. It never leaves row 1, so its queen is locked to that row.
Pale yellow covers 1 square, spanning 1 row and 1 column (rows 7–7, columns 1–1). It never leaves row 7, so its queen is locked to that row.
Slate occupies 5 squares within rows 4–6, columns 7–8.
Amber: 8 squares across rows 1–2, columns 3–7.
Mint covers 9 squares, spanning 6 rows and 2 columns (rows 1–6, columns 1–2).
Red occupies 11 squares within rows 4–8, columns 1–4.
Khaki: 14 squares across rows 6–8, columns 3–8.
Blue covers 15 squares, spanning 4 rows and 7 columns (rows 2–5, columns 2–8).
Where to start on this board
Indigo is the natural opening on #246: it is the smallest region on the grid at 1 square, boxed into rows 1–1 and columns 8–8. Since one of those squares must hold a queen, that block of 1 row and 1 column is the most contested part of the board.
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. Pale yellow 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 #246
A quick way to find the next move is to count how many different colors touch each line. On this board, rows 3 and 8 are the narrowest, touched by only 2 colors. Columns 1, 2, 5 and 6 are the tightest columns, with 3 colors.
The fewer colors a line touches, the sooner it surrenders its queen. A row meeting just 2 colors has to be claimed by one of them, which pushes every remaining region into the other 7 rows. Row 6, meeting 4 colors, is the opposite case — the busiest line on #246 and the last one you should expect to crack.
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 eight colors looking for one with a single square left; sweep the eight rows and eight columns looking for the same. Each sweep feeds the next, and switching between them deliberately — rather than drifting — is what separates a fast 8x8 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 #246 is rated hard
Ratings track how generous the opening is. On #246 you get four regions pinned to a single row or column, a smallest color of 1 square, a tightest row crossed by 2 colors, and a 14-square gap between the largest and smallest regions. Those four numbers largely explain the hard 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 8x8
At 8x8 the whole grid stays within a single glance, which makes systematic scanning practical. Read the rows in order and count the colors in each — a row touched by two colors is far more constrained than one touched by five, and that is usually where the next forced move hides. The board is small enough that re-scanning from the top after each placement costs almost nothing.
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 #246, start hunting for it near row 3.
Here is a shape check that gives nothing away: when #246 is solved, 3 queens sit on the outer edge of the grid and 5 sit inside it, with 1 queen in a corner. A work-in-progress board that clusters its queens in one quadrant while leaving others bare is usually carrying a mistake.
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.
Full rules · Strategy library · Puzzle statistics
Questions about this puzzle
How hard is 8x8 Queens puzzle #246?
Puzzle #246 is rated hard. Its smallest color region holds 1 square, its tightest row is touched by 2 colors, and four of its regions are confined to a single row or column, which gives you a forced move early.
Does 8x8 puzzle #246 have only one solution?
Yes. Every puzzle in the 8x8 collection, including #246, has been verified to have exactly one valid arrangement of eight queens, and it can always be reached by logic alone — no guessing or backtracking needed.
Where should I place my first queen on puzzle #246?
Start with the indigo region — the most constrained color on this board, with 1 square spanning rows 1–1 and columns 8–8. Narrowing the smallest region first removes the most squares elsewhere on the grid.