Why do strong players stop playing chess

Because they will ask themselves: "Is this all that I am? Is there nothing more?"

chess is just one huge caste system

only if you have a high rating, then will you have respect.

and only high rated players will acknowledge or talk to other high rated players. and they will feel awkward talking to lower rated players because they will use their ego of a big rating to think that a lower rated player is inferior to them.

ha ha ha i think that is funny behavior that high rated players have.

If you put a lot of effort into something, you'll respect others who have done the same.  You'll recognize the same passion, and have gone through similar trials.  That's with anything not just with chess.

Anyway, wouldn't compare it to a caste system, anyone can improve their rating.  The second part of your post where you talk about how others think and feel seem pretty silly or a lot of projecting.

And you know this how?

Thanks couldn't find anything.. Now I can google him and find info, really weird.

Perhaps they get a girlfriend.

Perhaps it's worse than a girlfriend. Perhaps they get a wife.

I've been reading about Peter Biyiasas, Greek-born/American, who became an IM at 22 and a GM at 28. He retired from chess at 31 with a FIDE rating of 2450 to devote himself to his career as a computer programmer for IBM.

Biyiasas was also one of Fischer's friends.

Californian Peter Biyiasas claims to be the only grandmaster to have played with Fischer in recent years. In August 1981, Fischer lived with Biyiasas and his wife. Ruth Baring, in their home in San Francisco, and the two grandmasters played well over 100 speed games.

"If anything, Bobby's gotten better," said Biyiasas. "He's like a machine. There was a feeling of inevitability about these games. Fischer saw too much and was too fast. While he played, he made comments and joked. as if he were playing against an amateur. We played more than 100 games, and I never won one."

Even more impressive to Biyiasas was Fischer's ability to analyze chess positions. "We looked at Karpov-and-Kasparov games. and he would say. 'But look at these blunders. Karpov could have drawn this game. but he lost it.' They didn't look like blunders to me. but when Fischer took the time to explain. I saw that he was right every time. There's no doubt in my mind that Fischer's the best in the world."

--New York Magazine June 11, 1984

Someone calculated that for Fischer to have beaten Biyiasas that thoroughly Fischer would have had to have a blitz rating of 2900+.

More grist for the Fischer legend.

so i guess it is like when NFL football players retire at 35

they just can't play the game well anymore

In the NFL, unless you're a punter or place kicker you get the stuffing beaten out of you every down you play, plus almost everyone loses a little bit of physical prowess as they age. That means the fresh supply of rookies each year pushes out the wounded and the older guys who have lost half a step.

In chess, the ability to calculate accurately seems to drop off with age. If I could somehow get my 16 year old brain back (back when I was a tactical monster) and run my current chess understanding on It, I'd be well over 2000 USCF (instead of 1700). The sad truth is I just can't do tactics like I once could, and have to rely on better understanding - and accept that I'm just going to blunder away an annoying number of games.

I can easily see how someone who hated being a shadow of their former chess-playing self hanging it up and moving into some area of endeavor where age and experience compensate for mentally losing raw computational ability. There are plenty of those.

I think there's a certain amount of use-it-or-lose-it. To be sure everyone loses an edge with age, but how much may depend. At the age of 79 Korchnoi beat Caruana, a super-GM and sixty years younger.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/30/crosswords/chess/30chess.html

Even into his senior years Korchnoi kept up with opening theory, studied hard and played hard.

I think that age affects each individual differently. Look at Karpov go at his age and if I am not mistaken, Lasker was a beast at an advanced age also. Tal was on the verge of death, regardless of age and crushed his foes.

maybe he has a computer in his ears