It depends on the situation or position. I was bad at endgames (still, because I just starting to play again after several years recess) so when I set a tournament (10?) games with Chessmaster 2000, I got 7 draws and 3 Wins. The wins are due to my strategy to create an open complex sharp games. One of the best was when I exchanged my Queen with bishop+knight+pawn or so with the advantage of having Chessmaster with a "pinned" position. I continued to force it's materials (?) to be in a useless positions while searching next strategies.
When your opponent play a gambit (or such) you have to think of when you should give back the material for (only) a winning position. Chess programs are usually weak on this technique.
invincible1
♡ 26 ( +1 | -1 ) indiana-jayOfcourse! You are right, everything depends upon the position. I can setup a position where two pawns also could be stronger than a queen! But what ares wanted to know was probably in general which is stronger. Thanks for clarifying friend!
ares
♡ 38 ( +1 | -1 ) Its funny that most people would say the queen when i'd rather have both a bishop and a rook as they can be seperate from each other. I played one game where I moved my bishop into a position threatenings the opponents queen, but when when I moved him I had a rook behind it to put him in check. When he moved his king I took his queen.
ares
♡ 10 ( +1 | -1 ) ok lotr, I meant in general, would you rather start with a queen OR a bishop and rook
superblunder
♡ 87 ( +1 | -1 ) in most positions...I would be very depressed to have a bishop and rook while my opponent had the queen.
don't ever forget, the queen is an extremely versatile, powerful piece, capable of tactical attack like no other piece. Especially in an open board, things start looking very ugly, when your opponent has a queen and you don't.
Here is a quote from Jonathan Tisdall in his book 'Improve your chess now.' ( which has a large chapter tiitle 'the value of the pieces')
"I remember an interesting analysis session I once had with IM Leonid Bass. Leo was taking the side of a badly outnumbered queen, and putting up amazing resistance against both several pieces and multiple analysts. After convincing his adversaries that the position was far less clear than we all had thought, his simple and emphatic explanation was , 'The queen is a very strong piece!'"
superblunder
♡ 18 ( +1 | -1 ) by the way..please vote to mod these threads about chess pieces and put them in the chess related forum where they should have ben posted to begin with.