How do I defend against early Queen attacks?

Well first of all you've been on a winning tear, winning or drawing almost all your rapid games. So well done.

I think I found the game that was the inspiration for this game.

It's a classic case of overreacting to an empty threat. Knight c6 would have been great here. However you instinctively tried to kick his queen with g6, slowing your own development, weaking your king side, and blundering your center pawn all in the same move. Don't feel bad, this is a very common exact sequence for beginners.

Most importantly, you played g6 after 6 seconds. Don't feel like opening moves have to be played quickly. At this low ELO, you will win a ton of games in the first 10 moves by playing slow careful chess. Develop and defend, their attack will fail and your counter attack will involve far more than 1 or 2 pieces.

Yes you're right - this is exactly the game I'm talking about! Thank you kindly for your insight!

Chess is very good

Like this

I was black, and I was up against Nelson, who always brought his queen out. You should do the scandinavian defense, and try to do better than me, as it was a wild match.

Hello-

Early queen attacks only happen if they have a certain ploy.

Usually, this is the scholar's mate or the queen's wayward. If you don't know how to counter these, they can certainly be dangerous. What I suggest you do is search up a youtube video on the wayward queen attack or the scholars mate, learn how to defend against it. After this, you can punish their open queen with two things at once: since the queen is out in the open and is the most valuable piece, you can attack it while bringing out your own minor pieces. Therefore, after move 10, let's say, you have all of your minor pieces out while they still are dealing with their queen under constant attack.

One of the best ways to counter the Wayward Queen is this:

Queens are easy to trap with well-placed pawns or bishops.  knight can be useful to push them around and make them lose time and tempo

Congrats, you have just blundered your queen. There is a knight on c6.

Thanks all for the particularly helpful comments (with the exception of one certain person)! I'll try and implement this tactic in scenarios where this comes up!

Note for 'Gart_Arfunkle': Not exactly a GM yourself, let a beginner learn in peace. If you have nothing helpful to say, don't waste your time saying it. :)

Playing against an early queen bot is really good practice for this. Once you get it down to a T, you can punish unfortunate saps who try the same thing. 

The best thing about playing against a computer is that you have unlimited time to think about the move you need to make, so I would suggest asking yourself the following line of questions each move:

1. What pieces and squares is the queen targeting? 

2. Do I have any undefended pieces the queen could take next turn? 

3. Are there any forcing moves the queen could make, such as double attacks or checks? 

4. Given the three questions mentioned, what is the best move that deals with the concerns raised in questions 1, 2, and 3?

5. Is it possible to find a better move that gives the same results as in 4 but also develops a piece while gaining a tempo on the Queen without losing material? 

If you do this each move, you'll build excellent habits in this kind of scenario, and queen pushers will regret having engaged in unprincipled opening play against you. Best of luck!

Gotham chess has a youtube video on this topic.  I found it really helpful.

I will try these against some people at my local ches club, they won't see what hit them...