8×8 Queens puzzles — unlimited practice

A fresh 8×8 board whenever you want one, at any difficulty, with 638 finished 8×8 boards behind this page. It is a chessboard, eight colours deep, and the most-played size on the site. Place 8 queens: one in every row, one in every column, one in every colour, and no two touching — corners included. Change the difficulty with the pill beside the board, switch size from the Unlimited tab, and keep going: no daily limit, no streak to protect, no clock you have to beat.

What an 8×8 Queens board asks of you

Sixty-four squares across eight regions, so the average colour holds eight of them and a region down to its last free cell is rare. Something has to be argued instead. This is the size where confinement chains start to carry the board: one colour trapped in a row kills that line, which traps a second colour, which kills another, and the whole thing comes apart in sequence rather than all at once.

Which technique opens the board is what the difficulty pill beside it really changes. The strategy guide works through each named technique in the order the solver reaches for them, and the hint button on this board names the same ones.

Difficulty at 8×8 is a claim about the reasoning

The label never describes the square count — every board on this page has the same 64 squares. It describes what a board demands before it gives up its first queen, and the two move independently: an 8×8 rated beginner can be a shorter read than a 5×5 rated hard, 39 extra squares and all. The Queens Unlimited hub makes the same case with two real boards side by side.

Beginner — 150 boards. One region already holds a single square, so the first queen is free and the rest falls to counting rows, columns and colours. That one gift is deliberate: from an empty grid the simplest techniques have nothing to bite on without it.
Easy — 194 boards. Opens on a colour confined to one row or column. It owns that line, everything else in the line is dead, and the 8×8 comes apart from there.
Medium — 250 boards. Several of those confinements chained together, each one visible only after the last has been marked off — which across 64 squares means marking is part of the technique, not tidying up after it.
Hard — 44 boards. Pigeonhole arguments spanning several of the 8 regions at once, plus the exclusion reasoning that rules a square out by showing what it would break.

Medium — that is where the Mini’s last board sits, and it is the bucket that decides whether your daily run ends in three minutes or six.

Practising at 8×8

When a chain stalls, go back to the last queen you placed and re-read what it ruled out. On an 8×8 the next link is far more often an unmarked consequence of a move you already made than a technique you have never seen.

Two things hold at every size. A hint never guesses: it finds the next move a person could justify, names the technique, and waits for you to press show me before it marks anything. And boredom means move up a difficulty, not a size — the same reasoning with more squares around it is not new practice. The hub page has the full method.

Every 8×8 board here is provably fair

Each one was checked twice: once for having exactly one solution, and once for being reachable from an empty grid without a single guess. The check reruns over the whole pool before every release, so it covers all 638 8×8 boards rather than the handful anybody happened to play. If you are stuck here, there is a next step and the hint can name it.

Where 8×8 sits

The Daily Mini finishes on an 8×8 at medium, and the Daily Max plays two more. If you are practising to get faster at the daily rather than to explore, this is the size to drill.

Daily Mini — three boards a day, 6×6 to 8×8. The one that carries a streak.
Daily Max — ten boards a day, climbing to 10×10 and finishing harder than the Mini ever gets.
Archive — every past day, still playable and still scored the same way.
7×7 practice — one step down, if 8×8 is currently more search than reasoning.
9×9 practice — one step up, once 8×8 at hard has stopped surprising you.

Every Queens board size

Questions people ask about 8×8 Queens puzzles

How many queens does a 8×8 board take?: 8 — one per row, one per column, one per colour. There are always exactly 8 colours, and no two queens may touch, corners included.
Is 8×8 harder than a smaller board?: Bigger, not necessarily harder. Difficulty here describes the reasoning a board demands. A large board with generous regions can fall to counting alone, while a small one can need an argument spanning several regions at once.
How many 8×8 Queens puzzles are there?: 638 in the pool for this size, split across the four difficulties — 150 beginner, 194 easy, 250 medium, 44 hard. The picker avoids repeats within a session, so you will not see the same 8×8 twice in an evening.
Which difficulty should I start with on 8×8?: Medium, because that is where the Daily Mini’s last board sits.
Do these count towards my streak?: No. Streaks come from the daily boards. Practice is for drilling, so nothing here can break a run — or build one.
Can I play a 8×8 board on a phone?: Yes. The board sizes itself to the screen, so it stays tappable one-handed. If colour is not a reliable channel for you, turn on high-contrast colours in Settings and the regions separate by lightness instead of hue.