The Blitz Chess council recognizes that Lichess is a large institution within the realm of competitive Chess battling. Additionally, we understand that banning a core piece such as the Queen will have a substantial impact on the competitive landscape of this generation throughout our tournaments and perhaps other events. Given this, we would like to use this thread to explain the ban of the Queen as well as provide any relevant information for the sake of clarity and transparency.
While the Queen will be banned from the current Blitz Chess format and other timed formats, we do not require individuals to follow our set of rules and restrictions in their own casual games and non-Lichess affiliated tournaments. We recognize that we are not an official International Chess Federation website. Our rating infrastructure is only in place for Lichess formats; our ultimate goal from a rating perspective is to create a competitively balanced community that prioritizes player skill as a determinant of who ultimately wins each game. Removing the Queen from our tournaments helps us accomplish this goal, but that does not mean that you must adhere to this ban or our set of rules and restrictions in general if you are not playing official Lichess formats through Lichess tournaments or the official ladders on Chess.com. There are still other formats in which using the Queen piece is allowed. For example, both Classical and Rapid chess games currently allow for the Queen to be used, or if you wish to play a less restricted game, then you can play alongside your friends using the Custom Game format.
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The Queen was voted on and banned through a process known as suspecting. The process of a suspect involves opening up a formal discussion thread, such as the one here, and conducting a vote among qualified players after the suspect period is over. Qualification is gained through doing well on the ladder, specifically by achieving an ELO of 1500 or higher with a minimum of 1 game. Therefore, individuals who will determine the results of any given suspect will only be doing so through playing their way to an impressive win-loss ratio over a decent sample size of games, thus proving their levels of competency and understanding in order to vote. The list of qualified voters can be found in this thread, an explanation of the ladder rating process can be found in this thread, and the ultimate vote can be found in this thread.
The reasoning behind the Queen ban involves the increase in power, the impact of the secondary effects her positioning has, the defensive merit gained through deploying the Queen, and the element of unpredictability that comes alongside being able to move in any direction any number of squares. As GM Eric Rosen touches on in his post here, Magnus Carlssen discusses in his post here, and JoeMama1997 alludes to throughout his post here many of the Queen's moves can be devastating and she can be moved every turn with no required cooldown. There is no true limit to how potent the Queen's moves can be given that each central square provides different benefits that can potentially be game-changing; some of the most versatile pieces that are already great in the current metagame are made much stronger due to this, which makes finding reliable counterplay a virtual impossibility at times, as touched on by Nakamura in his post here. ChessPlayer42 also goes into detail on the various effects and benefits of Dynamax moves beyond sheer power and versatility in his post here. The ability for the most threatening piece in the game to fire off consecutive attacks, especially without being confined to a single rank or file, opens up a lot of unmanageable breaking possibilities. However, this is just the start as the secondary effects that occur through positioning and controlling the center of the board oftentimes lead to the the game largely being decided by a three-turn opening, especially if the Queen piece is able to deploy on a square where it can attack other pieces. The pawn-attacking aspect of the Queen is so problematic that pawn structure theory has quickly risen to the near the top of the reader statistics, which is a sign of a problematic metagame state as outlined by this post by myzozoa. This overwhelming prospect is also bolstered by the fact that the Queen piece has unlimited movement, allowing for her to avoid being taken out by otherwise troublesome threats as well as opening up the game to many defensive exploits of the Queen.
While all of this is cause for concern, the biggest reason for banning the Queen is perhaps the unpredictability that comes alongside it. TSM Bjergsen correctly identifies that we prioritize skillful play and minimizing guesswork and variance in his post here while also explaining that the Queen being present allows for a lot of variance due to the nature of her movement and its unpredictability. As Kasparov has stated, the uses of the Queen apply to any attacked square at any time. No matter what specific piece we try to get rid of (or even more narrowly prevent from capturing), the remaining set of chess pieces that can control the central squares will always be problematic. It goes way beyond "Pawns and Rooks are terrifying pieces due to their unique movement." Any concept of consistency or stability goes out the window when the player with the losing board can flip that around with the Queen. The existence of the Queen lessens competitive strategy and rewards short term bursts of prediction. Without the thought or planning going into player deduction, opening speculation, and how they relate to strategies regarding what beats what, the game cannot meet the standards of our competitive community. For more reasoning from members of the council, I would recommend reading through this post.
On top of this, we would like to add that this suspect has grouped the Queen with promoted Pawns as they are the same piece, but with the latter only being usable on a smaller case basis. In the games themselves, they function in the same way and are used through the same exact movement within the battle. Tiering them separately was not something we wished to entertain and pawn Promotion will also be banned alongside the Queen moving forward. We did not wish to employ any arbitrarily picked restriction on the level of piece point value or an alternative approach of banning an arbitrarily selected group of pieces as it will simply lead to recurring bans and the metagame being continuously compromised by the presence of the Queen and/or promoted pieces.
Despite the competitive ramifications of the Queen, it is true that individuals throughout the community, including a minority of voters, believed that the Queen should remain in the Blitz Chess format. One of the most common arguments on its behalf was that removing a core piece would strip the historic game of its identity. While we do understand that there may be some individual preference favoring historical preservation such as this, we still believe that finding a competitive balance is the first and foremost priority of tiering. Preserving a game that has player skill as the main determinant of the outcome of battles is of greater importance than preserving a piece to align the generation's identity with, which we deem unnecessary. As NotWolfesAlt and WolfeVGC touched on here, there are noteworthy, fundamental difference between this core piece and others. You cannot change the direction a Rook or Bishop will move, but you can move in any direction with the Queen. Another argument that has been made is that the Queen may promote short term bursts in power, but it also promotes more pro-active play and the metagame without it may be more passive when compared to past generations. While we realize that the metagame in the aftermath of this ban may take time to develop and require further tiering action, that will always be on the table and we will do everything within our power as a tiering council to promote a game that is highly competitive. We cannot keep one element deemed banworthy just to avoid others from arising; instead, we will go through the generation knowing that we may need to remove numerous things in order to find the right overall balance for the metagame. Because of this, you should also keep your eyes open for future discussions and potential suspects moving forward if you are an active player of chess!
Thank you to Antimony 721 for the suggestion to make this post!
While the Queen will be banned from the current Blitz Chess format and other timed formats, we do not require individuals to follow our set of rules and restrictions in their own casual games and non-Lichess affiliated tournaments. We recognize that we are not an official International Chess Federation website. Our rating infrastructure is only in place for Lichess formats; our ultimate goal from a rating perspective is to create a competitively balanced community that prioritizes player skill as a determinant of who ultimately wins each game. Removing the Queen from our tournaments helps us accomplish this goal, but that does not mean that you must adhere to this ban or our set of rules and restrictions in general if you are not playing official Lichess formats through Lichess tournaments or the official ladders on Chess.com. There are still other formats in which using the Queen piece is allowed. For example, both Classical and Rapid chess games currently allow for the Queen to be used, or if you wish to play a less restricted game, then you can play alongside your friends using the Custom Game format.
---
The Queen was voted on and banned through a process known as suspecting. The process of a suspect involves opening up a formal discussion thread, such as the one here, and conducting a vote among qualified players after the suspect period is over. Qualification is gained through doing well on the ladder, specifically by achieving an ELO of 1500 or higher with a minimum of 1 game. Therefore, individuals who will determine the results of any given suspect will only be doing so through playing their way to an impressive win-loss ratio over a decent sample size of games, thus proving their levels of competency and understanding in order to vote. The list of qualified voters can be found in this thread, an explanation of the ladder rating process can be found in this thread, and the ultimate vote can be found in this thread.
The reasoning behind the Queen ban involves the increase in power, the impact of the secondary effects her positioning has, the defensive merit gained through deploying the Queen, and the element of unpredictability that comes alongside being able to move in any direction any number of squares. As GM Eric Rosen touches on in his post here, Magnus Carlssen discusses in his post here, and JoeMama1997 alludes to throughout his post here many of the Queen's moves can be devastating and she can be moved every turn with no required cooldown. There is no true limit to how potent the Queen's moves can be given that each central square provides different benefits that can potentially be game-changing; some of the most versatile pieces that are already great in the current metagame are made much stronger due to this, which makes finding reliable counterplay a virtual impossibility at times, as touched on by Nakamura in his post here. ChessPlayer42 also goes into detail on the various effects and benefits of Dynamax moves beyond sheer power and versatility in his post here. The ability for the most threatening piece in the game to fire off consecutive attacks, especially without being confined to a single rank or file, opens up a lot of unmanageable breaking possibilities. However, this is just the start as the secondary effects that occur through positioning and controlling the center of the board oftentimes lead to the the game largely being decided by a three-turn opening, especially if the Queen piece is able to deploy on a square where it can attack other pieces. The pawn-attacking aspect of the Queen is so problematic that pawn structure theory has quickly risen to the near the top of the reader statistics, which is a sign of a problematic metagame state as outlined by this post by myzozoa. This overwhelming prospect is also bolstered by the fact that the Queen piece has unlimited movement, allowing for her to avoid being taken out by otherwise troublesome threats as well as opening up the game to many defensive exploits of the Queen.
While all of this is cause for concern, the biggest reason for banning the Queen is perhaps the unpredictability that comes alongside it. TSM Bjergsen correctly identifies that we prioritize skillful play and minimizing guesswork and variance in his post here while also explaining that the Queen being present allows for a lot of variance due to the nature of her movement and its unpredictability. As Kasparov has stated, the uses of the Queen apply to any attacked square at any time. No matter what specific piece we try to get rid of (or even more narrowly prevent from capturing), the remaining set of chess pieces that can control the central squares will always be problematic. It goes way beyond "Pawns and Rooks are terrifying pieces due to their unique movement." Any concept of consistency or stability goes out the window when the player with the losing board can flip that around with the Queen. The existence of the Queen lessens competitive strategy and rewards short term bursts of prediction. Without the thought or planning going into player deduction, opening speculation, and how they relate to strategies regarding what beats what, the game cannot meet the standards of our competitive community. For more reasoning from members of the council, I would recommend reading through this post.
On top of this, we would like to add that this suspect has grouped the Queen with promoted Pawns as they are the same piece, but with the latter only being usable on a smaller case basis. In the games themselves, they function in the same way and are used through the same exact movement within the battle. Tiering them separately was not something we wished to entertain and pawn Promotion will also be banned alongside the Queen moving forward. We did not wish to employ any arbitrarily picked restriction on the level of piece point value or an alternative approach of banning an arbitrarily selected group of pieces as it will simply lead to recurring bans and the metagame being continuously compromised by the presence of the Queen and/or promoted pieces.
Despite the competitive ramifications of the Queen, it is true that individuals throughout the community, including a minority of voters, believed that the Queen should remain in the Blitz Chess format. One of the most common arguments on its behalf was that removing a core piece would strip the historic game of its identity. While we do understand that there may be some individual preference favoring historical preservation such as this, we still believe that finding a competitive balance is the first and foremost priority of tiering. Preserving a game that has player skill as the main determinant of the outcome of battles is of greater importance than preserving a piece to align the generation's identity with, which we deem unnecessary. As NotWolfesAlt and WolfeVGC touched on here, there are noteworthy, fundamental difference between this core piece and others. You cannot change the direction a Rook or Bishop will move, but you can move in any direction with the Queen. Another argument that has been made is that the Queen may promote short term bursts in power, but it also promotes more pro-active play and the metagame without it may be more passive when compared to past generations. While we realize that the metagame in the aftermath of this ban may take time to develop and require further tiering action, that will always be on the table and we will do everything within our power as a tiering council to promote a game that is highly competitive. We cannot keep one element deemed banworthy just to avoid others from arising; instead, we will go through the generation knowing that we may need to remove numerous things in order to find the right overall balance for the metagame. Because of this, you should also keep your eyes open for future discussions and potential suspects moving forward if you are an active player of chess!
Thank you to Antimony 721 for the suggestion to make this post!
