How to play LinkedIn Queens

LinkedIn Queens is a daily logic puzzle played on a square grid that is divided into colored regions. You place queens — shown as crowns — so that every row, every column and every colored region holds exactly one, and no two queens touch. Each board has a single solution that can be reached by logic alone, so you never have to guess.

If you know sudoku or the classic eight-queens problem, you already have the right instincts: it is a game of ruling cells out until only one place is left. The colored regions are what make Queens its own puzzle, because their shapes decide where the easy first moves are. A new board appears once a day and is the same for everyone, which is why colleagues compare their times.

The rules

1. Place exactly one queen (a crown) in every row.
2. Place exactly one queen in every column.
3. Place exactly one queen in every colored region.
4. Queens may not touch each other — not even diagonally.

How a game goes, step by step

1. Look over the colored regions before you place anything, and find the smallest ones. A region of one or two cells has almost no choice about where its queen goes.
2. Place the first queen where a region leaves only one possible cell, then cross out everything that queen rules out: the rest of its row, its column, its region, and the cells touching it, diagonals included.
3. Check what the crossed-out cells changed. A region that looked open often has a single free cell left, which gives you the next queen.
4. When nothing is forced, look for a region that fits entirely inside one row or column. That line belongs to it, so you can cross the line out for every other region.
5. Keep alternating between placing a forced queen and crossing out what it eliminates until every row, column and region has its queen.

Three tips for your first games

• Mark eliminated cells with an X as you go instead of keeping them in your head. Most boards that feel stuck are boards where one elimination was missed.
• Remember that queens may not touch diagonally either. Beginners usually apply the row and column rules and forget the four corner neighbors.
• If several regions fit inside the same few rows, those rows are taken: no other region can put its queen there.

Ready for more? Read the Queens strategy guide