Queen attacking early

Further to my earlier topic...

What is the forum's general opinion on the queen attacking early? Should she stay on the opening square until later on in the game? Is it better to develop her early as she is the most powerful piece?

Thoughts please.

It's a well known bit of advice, to not bring the queen out early, but I don't think many beginners understand the reasoning behind this, because it's not correct to say a queen has more power than a pawn, only more mobility.  Beginners are confusing mobility (and value) for power.

Pieces are given value in regard to their mobility, not attacking power.  The truth is when a queen attacks a piece it's no more powerful than if a knight or rook were attacking the piece, and like all pieces, she can only capture one at a time.  This means a pawn can guard against a queen's attack just as effectively as a bishop or even the other queen can.  So we see the power of her attack is equal to every other piece.

The power of her attack may be the same as a pawn, but again it's because her mobility is greater that her value is higher -- and it's only logical that more valuable pieces be kept safer, at a distance, because any piece of lesser value can force it to retreat.

Experience will teach you that the only way an early queen attack will work, is if your opponent helps you by not defending at all.  Any competent opponent will only be benefited when facing an early queen sortie.  They benefit because they will spend their moves developing their army while the other side spends it's moves retreating it's queen.  Experience tells us this, but the logic behind it (that all pieces are equally powerful attackers, only their mobility is different) I think is lost on most beginners.

Great explanation, besides being kicked around the board developing your opponent without being able to do so yourself, there are also other matters to consider like:

Center control, development of minor pieces, castling or king safety. The less value a piece has, the better it will stay at the center, in the early game the queen will probably not do much.

I understand the point you're making, which sounds very useful for a beginner, but in terms of terminology I believe the above is wrong, and therefore in a way I feel the OP was unnecessarily criticised here.

For example, I just picked up the first chess book in sight, looked up "Queen" in the index, and went to the relevant page.  The book was Winning Chess Endings by Seirawan, and the sentence I saw was "Because the Queen is so much more powerful than a Rook, ...".

Of all the games I've played on this site, only once did my opponent bring his queen out early and managed to cause a bit of trouble. But in the end he paid for it dearly: I was able to chase the lady all around the board and eventually capture her in exchange for a knight. So I guess the general advice about keeping her under wraps in the opening is pretty sound.

true saying i know a atack witch the queen gets traped in exchanged for a good amout of the blacks king side peces

On multiple occasions I have seen opponents try 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Qf6.  I think the main reason for this would be to play Bg4 to pin the Knight, and perhaps they expect you to play h3 which is a checkmate if you don't sacrifice the rook.  
So in my opinion when opponents bring their queen out, you should observe their main "trap" that they are trying to pull, and if they don't have one, then just kick her around the board while you develop

There are a few normal occasions when the Queen can be brought out early to good effect, like a couple of the lines in the Scotch opening, but most of the time when my opponent brings her out early I'm able to develop and chase her at the same time.  Once in a while your opponent leaves something stupid that you can grab real fast with your Queen, but when I do so, I take into account that I'm probably going to have to retreat her right back to where she started, and the loss of 2 moves needs to be factored in to my initial decision.

--Cystem

Moves with Queen in opening of the game is mistake.

The Blackburne Shilling, the Queen always comes out early, but that's more of a Gambit trap than anything else, yo!

The terminology I gave I believe is more precise.  I'm familiar with books referring to the queen's value as power, and it's not wrong, but beginners confuse this with attacking power instead of her power of mobility.

I wasn't trying to criticize the OP.  I was trying to be clear with what I said, and didn't mean to come off as harsh -- it's because I thought the initial reaction would be "but she is more powerful my book says so?!?!" that I took so long to say what I did.

Many openings it's ok to bring her out, and almost every opening you could bring her out and it wouldn't be fatal at all, just cost a tempo, or may even be useful.  I don't think one opening exists where both players follow all the opening principals that beginners are taught.  However showing all these exceptions before someone understands the basics can be confusing instead of enlightening.

I don't really get my queen out in the first moves. look the scandinavian, white is gining tempo. Can sombody continue scandinavian please with the aim to gain tempo for black.

<quote>...This means a pawn can guard against a queen's attack just as effectively as a bishop or even the other queen can.  So we see the power of her attack is equal to every other piece. </quote>

I would add to this a further idea: that a pawn has more attack and defensive power than a Queen in the sense that because it has less value, it is expendable. losing a pawn to open a file against the king is, in many cases, a perfectly acceptable loss...whereas giving up a whole queen for an open file will lose more often than win.

Likewise, on the defensive,  should our defensive knight be attacked by a fellow knight a trade might well be advantageous to the attacker, whereas, if the defensive unit where a pawn much more consideration would be required to see if the sacrifice is worth it.

Therefore, an argument against early queen use could be the following: it is simply better to use more expendable peices to punch through the defence and then bring the queen out.

While the rule of thumb about not bring in the queen out too early is a useful start, it really serves to highlight the interesting exceptions.  I think the queen can be used to considerable effect at the cusp of the early-to-mid game, in certain situations.

For example, when the a player has developed favoring one side of the board, and then castles putting their King on the other side.  This can open up an opportunity for a sharp attack on the castled position, backed by a well-positioned queen.

lol... This is good, I'm just laughing because it leads to a very interesting line of thought... if pieces of lesser value are more effective defenders, then the queen's attacking power is less meaningful relative to the other chessmen... like you said a pawn's attack must be considered by every defender, but a queen's attack can be ignored by every defender.

So the queen is the least powerful piece in terms of attacking power!  But what she lacks in quality she makes up for in quantity, being able to add control to many squares, and also as a support piece.  While other pieces may clumsily try to cover squares, her movement is very fluid and fast. 

And one step further completes the circle... from the last paragraph it follows that her value rises as the game progresses as less pieces are present... meaning in all considerations she is least useful at the beginning of the game.  It all makes sense, but sounds funny when you say it out loud