Both Chess and Kess are great board games. Chess is the first and greatest board game ever, with a history dating back to thousands of years, even though the name itself is fairly modern.

Chess is a what can be called a high voltage game. To an onlooker it may be two people sitting quietly staring at a board and game pieces. The tension that is built up in a Chess game is palpable. The air above the chess board is like tornado alley, in terms of the pressure and tension building up. With almost an infinite number of scenarios that could be considered for the next move, and the need to visualize and anticipate and mentally calculate out the upcoming moves from the other side, chess is a real battle field on a tabletop. It is fun too, if you have high stress tolerance.

While Chess is 'High Voltage', Kess is a 'Front Porch on a Summer Day' kind of game

Kess is different in that it is 'low voltage' and actually relaxing. Each time you get your turn, you can make 5 moves, which makes it a tactics heavy game, where your mental clarity and powers of observation (as to where your opponents pieces are) is the decisive factor for a win. Kess is to Chess what Kung Fu is to formal Karate. It is unconventional, fast and it is a lot of fun.

Another thing you will love about Kess is that this is a game you can play on your own, even without a friend or partner. Drag that table and chair to your front porch, get a bag of chips and a coke, and you can play Me vs Myself. It is fun, it is relaxing, and it gives you yet another reason to be outside and get some fresh air.

You could even take it to work and play it between work assignments or on your lunch break. It will relax you.

Board Games, Cognition and Stress

If you are interested, take a look at the scientific research that has been done around Chess. In the study titled

" Playing board games, cognitive decline and dementia: a French population-based cohort study "

Published by Jean François Dartigues, Alexandra Foubert-Samier, and Mélanie Le Goff, the authors conclude

A possible beneficial effect of board game playing on the risk of dementia could be mediated by less cognitive decline and less depression in elderly board game players.

But in another review article titled "Neurology, psychiatry and the chess game: a narrative review"

and published in

"Neurologia, psiquiatria e o jogo de xadrez: uma revisão narrativa"

the authors make the following interesting observation :

The discussion about stress in chess players was studied by Troubat et al., in 2009, who evaluated the effects of psychological stimuli on physiological responses. They studied the effects of playing chess in chess competitors with a series of cardio-respiratory and metabolic variables. It was observed that since the beginning of the contest, heart rate was rather elevated and both heart rate and respiratory exchange ratio slightly increased during the game. Such elevated levels could indicate that substrate oxidation mainly involved carbohydrates. The authors concluded that high cognitive demands during a chess game resulted in sympathetic activation, with great heart rate variability and increased arterial blood pressure

Kess is a newly invented and patented game and has never been studied in this manner. But if you play Chess and then you play Kess, you will notice that the 'Enjoyability Index' is way higher with Kess, and you will feel laid back and relaxed. So Kess combines the skill and excitement of a battle board game with simplicity driven relaxation and enjoyment. It is a hard balance to achieve, and that is what makes Kess unique. And to top it off, it is 100% skill based, where luck and dice and coins have no role to play, and yes, it makes it even more ideal as a front porch game, you won't be looking around in the lawn for your lost quarters and dimes!