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Insane

Insane is a chess variant, invented by Jari Huikari. He had the idea for this variant on January 11, 1998. The same day, he modified his existing chess program to a program that plays Insane.

Rules and comments

Startposition and the moving rules in INSANE are the same than in normal chess. The difference, which makes it little insane, is that after each move of queens, rooks, bishops, knights and pawns they change randomly to Q/R/B/N/P of same colour. (This may affect surprises in your tactical plans... plus uncontrollable laugh. Just when you thought, you mated your opponent by your queen, it changes to pawn or knight...) There is always the possibility (1:5) that moved piece doesn't change at all. I believe that with right strategies you will win your opponent. So INSANE isn't insane after all. But sometimes it gives changes also to weaker player...

The program

Jari's program is freeware.

Jari's downloads page, which has several Chess, Chess Variant and general game programs, can be found here.


Written by Hans Bodlaender using text from an email of Jari Huikari.
WWW page created: January 14, 1998. Last modified: May 15, 2001.