Chess used to be rewarding in terms of the said mental health benefits, pleasure of playing and money. So the simple reason for giving it up is all the factors mention is now gone or reduced substantially.
GilaChess.com used to bring in revenue that made blogging for chess pretty doable as it covered basic stuff like my travel expenses, food and then some. That all went away when Exabytes blew up my website.
Then there is health. Playing chess is super stressful and at my age, it is definitely does not help with my blood pressure and other issues.
So both playing and blogging about chess take a hit.
The latest blow is my Youtube Partner status has been revoked. Being a Youtube partner means I made money from the chess videos I posted on Youtube. Granted it wasn't much as my viewership is not high but it was encouraging as the more videos I made the more pennies (literally it is pennies!) I get. So there was incentive to make more interesting videos.
Google has since changed their requirements to be a partner which is unfair considering I already qualified before.
From Google FAQ:
It's 1000 subscribers AND 4000 hours of watch time which I do not have. And achieving that number is pretty hard considering chess viewership is in Malaysia.
So am I retired from chess? Again - the answer is not quite yet. I am semi-retired but that will be changed to fully retired if my last source of income Google Adsense (revenue from people reading my blog - meaning you!) is also revoked. At least the good news is that I'm already exploring other non-chess subjects which has more eyeballs compared to chess.
Still all is not doom and gloom for my blog. Will try more video blogging (vlog) as I have not given up yet to be partner again in Youtube. I will still go to chess tournaments when invited. Also I am still interested in the programming aspect of chess like writing scripts from chess-results, installing lichess in Malaysia and a DGT system replacement/alternative.
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