LinkedIn Queens: the rules, the four deductions that solve any board, and today's solution

The four deductions

The four moves below are consequences of the official rules, not tricks. Each is a way of noticing that a crown has only one place left to go, or that a group of cells can be ruled out before you know where the crown is.

1. The single-line region. If a region fits entirely inside one row (or one column), its crown must be in that row — so no *other* region can have a crown in that row. Cross out every cell of that row outside the region.

2. The forced cell. After eliminations, a region with one remaining cell gets its crown there. Then eliminate that crown's row, column, and the eight surrounding cells.

3. The N-regions-in-N-lines squeeze. If two regions between them occupy only two rows, those two rows are spoken for: every other region's cells in those rows are eliminated. This scales to three regions in three rows, and it works the same way for columns.

4. The pair elimination. If a region's remaining cells are two adjacent cells, a crown in *either* of them touches the same neighbouring cells — so those neighbours can be crossed out even before you know which of the two is right.

When none of the four applies, a short what-if is still logic rather than a guess: put a crown in one cell of a two-cell region, run the eliminations, and if some other region is left with no legal cell, the crown belongs in the other cell. Because every archived board has exactly one solution, that kind of contradiction is always there to be found.

A solving order that works

Start with the smallest regions. In the 36 archived boards the smallest region had one cell on 9 boards, two cells on 8, three on 11, four on 5 and five on 3 — so on nearly half the boards the smallest region leaves you choosing between at most two cells. Place what is forced, run the eliminations, then look for single-line regions and the squeeze among what remains. Leave the largest region — as big as 45 of a 9×9 board's 81 cells in the archive — for last: it has the most candidates and gives the least information early.

Mark eliminations as you go. LinkedIn's help page describes the marked symbol for exactly this — eliminating cells that cannot contain a crown — and an Auto-place X's setting that marks invalid cells for you after each crown. A board with every impossible cell crossed out shows its forced cells; a board without them hides them.

A worked board, deduction by deduction

Take an illustrative 7×7 with seven regions — a teaching board, not a specific LinkedIn puzzle (a real one, #856, is worked on the Queens solver page). Region A is a single cell in the top-right corner. Region B is a 1×3 strip along the bottom row. The rest are irregular blobs. Here is the solve in the order the deductions become available.

Move 1 — forced cell. Region A has one cell, so its crown is there: row 1, column 7. Eliminate row 1, column 7, and the three cells around it (row 2, columns 6–7).

Move 2 — single-line region. Region B sits entirely in row 7, so row 7's crown is in B. Cross out every row-7 cell outside B. That also means the regions touching row 7 must place their crowns in rows 1–6.

Move 3 — the squeeze. Regions C and D between them occupy only rows 2 and 3. Their two crowns take those two rows, so every other region's cells in rows 2–3 are eliminated. Region E, which had cells in rows 2–5, is now confined to rows 4–5, and its options have halved without a single new crown on the board.

Move 4 — pair elimination. Region F's survivors are two adjacent cells in row 5. Whichever gets the crown, the two cells directly above the pair and the two directly below it touch both candidates, so all four are out. If that removes all but one of region G's remaining cells, G is forced.

The rest is bookkeeping: each placement eliminates, each elimination forces. Seven crowns, each placed because a region or a line had exactly one legal cell left. The answer page for each day shows the solved board so you can trace the same kind of sequence on the real thing.

Board shapes you'll recognise

These are shapes worth recognising, with the move that applies to each. The table describes the logic of each shape, not how often LinkedIn uses it.

The no-touching rule is the whole game

Without the no-touching rule, Queens would be an ordinary row-and-column placement puzzle with a colouring twist. With it, every crown removes more than its row and column: on a 9×9, a crown away from the edges rules out 20 other cells — 8 in its row, 8 in its column and the 4 diagonal neighbours that are in neither. That is what makes small regions so powerful. Players who think of the touching rule as a constraint on where crowns *can't* go are playing it backwards — it's the main tool for deciding where the *other* crowns must go.

Board sizes and what they demand

In the archive the grid size followed the week: Monday and Tuesday boards were 7×7 or 8×8, Wednesday to Friday were mostly 8×8, and Saturday and Sunday boards were 9×9 every time. Size is not the whole story — the regions matter as much — but every weekend board in the window was a 9×9 with no one-cell region to give away the first crown.

Four mistakes that add minutes

Four errors that follow directly from the rules, and the fix for each.

• Placing before eliminating. A crown placed without crossing out its row, column and neighbours leaves the board looking more open than it is. Eliminate first, always.
• Starting with the big region. It has the most options and the least information. It resolves itself last.
• Forgetting the squeeze. Two regions confined to two rows claim both rows, and it is easy to miss because neither region need be small. Scan for it whenever you stall.
• Guessing on a 50/50. A region down to two cells can be settled by checking what each choice would eliminate: if one choice leaves another region with no legal cell, the other is correct. Look for the deciding constraint before you tap.

Timing, streaks and the leaderboard

LinkedIn's help page says only that you get a score, which the results page compares with averages for all members, your company, CEOs and more; your connections see it only if you both opt into the connections leaderboard or you share it (Games FAQ). Board size varies by day, so compare results only on the same board. Streaks count consecutive days you have won, and a streak freeze — earned by winning five games in a row, with at most two held per game — covers a missed day without adding to the count (Streaks help page).

The game's official help page describes the rules and the crown/X marking controls; it says nothing about strategy, which is why this page exists.

Queens since launch

Queens launched on 30 April 2024, one of three games — with Pinpoint and Crossclimb — that LinkedIn News introduced that day; the announcement described it as a logic game that challenges players to fill each row, column and coloured region with a queen, none of which can touch. The current help page states the same rules and lists the assistance tools: Hint (highlights a region where a crown must be placed, or flags incorrect placements), Auto-check, Auto-place X's, Undo and Clear. In our archive the puzzle number rose by one a day, from #856 on 3 September 2026 to #893 on 10 October 2026.

Why Queens results come down to pure deduction

Queens involves no vocabulary, no trivia and no typing, so when two players' results on the same board differ, the difference is in how quickly each saw the forced moves. LinkedIn's results page compares your score with averages for all members, your company and CEOs, and the company and school leaderboards rank organisations by their members' average score (LinkedIn help). That is a reason to practise the four moves above until they're automatic — unlike Pinpoint, where a clue count also depends on what you happen to know.

Region sizes in the archive and what they open

From the 36 boards in HintSheet's archive (3 September – 10 October 2026), grouped by the size of each board's smallest region. One-cell regions clustered at the start of the week; the weekend boards' smallest regions were two to five cells.

Reader questions

"Can crowns touch on the diagonal if they're in different regions?" No — the no-touching rule applies regardless of region.

"Does the board size follow a schedule?" LinkedIn doesn't publish one. In our archive Monday and Tuesday boards were 7×7 or 8×8 and every Saturday and Sunday board was 9×9.

"Is the hint button a penalty?" LinkedIn's help page says Hint highlights a region where a crown must be placed or points out incorrect placements; it doesn't say how using it affects your score.

Glossary

Terms as used on this site.

• Region — a coloured area; exactly one crown.
• Single-line region — a region contained in one row or column.
• Squeeze — N regions confined to N lines, which claim those lines.
• Pair elimination — two adjacent candidate cells eliminating their shared neighbours.
• X mark — the in-game elimination note (LinkedIn's help page calls it the marked symbol); not mechanically required, always useful.

A weekly rhythm

In the 36 archived boards, Monday and Tuesday were 7×7 or 8×8, and seven of those ten boards had a one-cell region that gives away the first crown. Wednesday to Friday ran 7×7 to 9×9, mostly 8×8, with a one-cell region on only 2 of 16 boards. Saturday and Sunday were 9×9 every time, never had a one-cell region, and on 7 of the 10 no region was confined to a single row or column — so the squeeze and the pair elimination do the work. If you're learning, play Monday and Tuesday for the moves and the weekend for the practice.

The hint button, and when to use it

LinkedIn's help page describes Hint as highlighting a region where a crown must be placed, or indicating incorrect placements. That makes it a teaching tool more than a shortcut: when a board has stalled and you take the hint, look at the region it highlights and ask which of the four deductions forces a crown there — a one-cell remainder, a single-line region, the squeeze or a pair elimination. Seeing that once on a real board is worth more than reading about it. The help page doesn't say whether hints change your score, so if your results matter to you, solve without them; if you're learning, using them freely for a week and then stopping is a reasonable plan.

Frequently asked questions

Recent Queens answers

Every past puzzle is in the Queens archive. New here? Start with the Queens guide.