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Yes a lot of players don't know what to do without a queen. If you trade queens while practicing playing without a queen you'll have a big advantage.

There are lines of various openings that facilitate queen trades, sometime obtaining equal positions and sometime good positions. For istance in the philidor you can have a queen trade with loss of castling rights in a few moves and the position is fine for Black.

In all honesty tho, nobody can really play queen-less Middlegames/endgames accurately enough at sub-master level, so there's no real advantage putting all your energies in a queen trade tbh.

Anyway, a good group of "rules of the thumb" for when seeking queen trades could be: - you are under attack and are turtling... Trading the heaviest pieces (the queens) can alleviate the pressure - you have some material advantage and wanna simplify - the resulting endgame is better for you

You don't want to trade queens when: - you are attacking
- you are behind in material (not always true, but mostly true).
- the resulting endgame is bad or uncertain
- your general piede activity and queen activity is better than your opponent's. This point is quite important and correctly evaluating a position is essential to know when trading pieces or not.

I'd suggest not to randomly look for queen trades without a clear reason behind it. It's a bad practice and will hinder your learning process

A big thing that helps is trading queens to screw up their pawn structure or take away their ability to castle. Even trade that gives you an advantage.

All trades including queen trades, at a high level, are evaluated for whether they benefit you or not. At a higher level, going into Queen trades without thinking about who it benefits will hurt you in some cases. But it’s not the biggest deal ever, usually.

It's a strategy with caveats. It depends exactly how you're implementing it.

The one idea you want to remember is it's usually better to offer a trade than to make a trade. In terms of tempo, the one who takes back has made an extra move. So unless the way you're making them take back is disadvantageous (doubling pawns, blocking piece development, etc), it's not a good mindset to just ooga-booga trade queens because I can.

You’re getting solid advice from higher rated players than me, but maybe consider broadening this idea by just getting comfortable playing for endgames. Not necessarily rushing to get the queen off the board as soon as possible, as then you might hamper yourself with missed opportunities. I think that mindset will take you a little farther a little more often

Mednis wrote a book, From the Opening Into the Endgame, that has opening variations that involve an early Q trade.

Theory has moved quite a bit since 1983, but the lines are also usually not theoretically critical. Might be of interest.

I’d hate this if you did it to me also half the time I’d just hang my queen so yes, good strategy at lower ELOs.

It is a viable strategy, but I just think it’s super boring. Most of my games involve the opponent desperately trying to trade queens.

Everything you do and learn against lower rated players, strategy, tactics or whatever else, will still work against higher rated players.

It just has the caveat that you will have to refine your knowledge and application of those strategies.

In any given game, the choice to trade Queens will have pros and cons. As you improve, you need to become better at assessing those pros and cons, and if you can help it, only trade Queens when the pros outweigh the cons. And that will be true for any other thing you learn to do on the Chess board.

What will happen as you gain rating is that in the games that you make a wrong evaluation, you will be punished more severily. It does not mean the idea or strategy was wrong, it just wasn't applied in the right moment, or it was executed incorrectly. And this is not necessarily your fault, there is no concept of the game that is guaranteed to always be correct (even the basic one of not giving away material).

So dont be worried wether it's a viable strategy, in some cases it may even be just the purely correct strategy to employ.

I like trading queens because I find it helps to concentrate skirmishes, rather than this juggernaut putting pressure all over the board. I just enjoy that type of play more.

I am, however, more apt to push for trading queens if I believe my opponent is specifically reliant on the queen. Even if the trade doesn't happen, pursuing the opponents queen often disrupts the moment their plans.

I like to get the queens off the board

as you said, if you are up material , 99% of the time is good to trade queens, it will give them less and less chances to make something happen. Imagine queen+rook vs queen, or just trade queens and get rook vs nothing. Its 10x easier.

I'm not very good, so at my lower level, I sometimes like the early queen trade when I have a slight lead in development and the d file opens up, and taking their queen with mine will cause a loss of castle rights, because it also throws people off and gives me a tempo. A lot of especially lower ELO players heavily rely on their queen. 

If it doesn't guarantee loss of castle rights, or it doesn't give me a tempo, I tend to avoid it. 

is this a viable strategy in higher elos?

No.

A queen trade is either good or bad given the specific situation and board state. So it can be a viable move to trade queens early if it helps create an advantage for you. (Say for example the would have to take back with their king and lose casting rights, or damage their pawn structure.)

It can also be good to trade queens when you are under attack from that queen. If your queen is more passive then it's often less valuable than theirs in that moment so it can be to your advantage to try and make a trade happen.

If your opponent begins the game with a queen attack, yes.

Otherwise, you probably won't know until middle game. But you could always offer the trade and see what they do. But... if they take, the game probably won't go how you expect. Not saying you'll lose.

Can't blunder a queen if they are off the board.

Scandinavian has entered the chat.

yeah if you study endgames a lot and know your opponent doesn't or suspect your opponent doesn't, you can easily outplay them by forcing the trade of queens and going into an endgame.

"Higher elos like 1000-2000". My god standards are low these days.

Anyway! It's entirely viable, however your opponent also gets a saying. So I could kinda see people declining Queen trades. In other words: Try to not chase it too much.

Also not playing with a piece might lead to a worse understanding of the piece. I used to trade all Rooks all the time when I was a beginner, which lead to a very poor understanding of Rook endgames. The Queen in general is a very strong attacking piece, so trying to understand it is kind of important once it gets to attacking play.

But if you are currently consistently winning with this strat and having fun, then keep on doing it.

Yes 100%. Trading a queen pretty much fast forward the game to the endgame. Many players do not know how to play a good endgame without a queen and rightly so it’s not easy. So if u trade queens and have good practice playing without one you give yourself a good advantage.

As SadisticTushi says, we trade the queen so we don’t fumble the queen. Thats a smart move for a Low ELO dummy.

I'd say at your level, focus on getting better at middlegames rather than rely on a strategy that sees you playing end games. 400-600 elo middlegames are so deficient in ability you are simply not good enough at chess yet to warrant employing such a strategy. Funnily enough my colleague who is 1800 ecf (2100 rapid or so, im 1900 rapid for reference) uses such a strategy against strong opponents otb as black to take them out of their comfort zone but for you, just focus on the fundamentals and not blundering.

I think it's okay to practice some games like this but you don't want to get stuck as this being your main strategy. The queen is a powerful piece for you too.

Learning to trade queens early is a good skill. But it will usually mean you have to learn how to maneuver the end game with tools or king and pawn. This is one of the easiest ways to blunder and lose the game, as many low elo games are resigned when queens die, and sometimes you accidently let your king go into check with your rook x-rayed behind the king and you lose on the spot.

In essence yes, but it does get harder. Some openings are more geared for the end game than others and are worth looking into as well. My xp with the caro trends toward queenless pawn endgames for instance. In fact, many black openings trend towards removing queens asap because black is inherently on the defensive and removing queens is the fastest way to neuter an offense.

Trading queens if you're good at endgames or rook attacks? Yes. If you aren't? No.

I'm around 1600s and my strongest point in all time controls is the end game. If I find a fair queen trade then I am fully willing to accept it 90% of the time. Just try to be aware of how good your queen is vs your opponent's queen. You don't want to give away your queen if it has a large part of his position tied up in knots while his queen is just defending some pieces you aren't attacking

The game is complicated with much to think about, trading the queens at below a 1000 can simplify the game with less to think about. If it suits you game right now then keep doing it. Not really a viable option as you rise up passed 1000, by that time you should now more about the game and not need to trade queens,,