Obscure Blogger to Become Even More Obscure

This began back in January of 2005, and here we are in July of 2019, 14 and a half years later. Many of my students weren't even alive when I started this blog. I have no idea as to how many posts I've written, but I've uploaded about 7500 games, and annotated around 5700 of them. That's a lot of time and effort.

The blog began as a way of sharing what was new in the chess world, presenting the sort of information I hoped to find when browsing the chess web, but rarely did. This meant chess news and annotated games, but a good deal more - there was more of an informal feel in those early years, and as a younger guy I had more energy and fewer responsibilities to handle. It was also new and exciting, and I threw myself into it, often posting 5-7 times a day.

I still feel satisfied when posting a well-crafted entry, but the increasingly rapid treadmill of elite events is harder to keep up with, and - unlike the situation when I first started - there are plenty of others who are doing a fine job of it. There are also other things happening in my life to which I'd like to give more attention, without having a little voice in the back of my head asking when I'm going to catch up on my coverage of this or that event.

So, dear readers, this is it...kind of. I'm considering selling the database of all the games (with the annotations), if there's any interest, and I'm also thinking of selling a bunch of my chess books. (Not all of them, but a pretty fair number of them.) You guys will get dibs on them. And I'll throw in another pitch for chess lessons - catch me here while you can (send me a note via the Contact link if you're interested). So there will still be a little bit of this and that as we close up shop, but this is just about the end. (Never say never, so who knows, but that's the plan.)

To head off any conjectures or concerns: my health is fine (as far as I know), nor is this precipitated by something terrible happening in my private life. I'm just moving on to other things, grateful for the experience of having blogged for all these years, and for the interactions I've had with many of you. Thanks a bunch, everyone, and I'll hopefully see many of you elsewhere: at live events or on chess servers, for example. I'm still doing videos on ChessLecture.com, and maybe someday I'll do videos on YouTube or try streaming on Twitch, but no guarantees.

Thanks again, everyone. God bless you.