Besides, I thought you had me on ignore.

I checked the endgame with an engine, by the way, and in several points there it gives you a winning advantage. You played imprecisely, which is normal for a human. The advantage (according to my program) shifted sides numerous time, and as Tartakower would put it, he who made the one-before-last mistake won.

Do you suppose an engine would play 39. f4, allowing you (I just didn't see it coming...) the shot ...f5+, with ...e4, establishing a protected passed pawn, and shifting the position from a very slight edge for white, into a clear advantage for black? That pawn frightened the hell out of me on e4!

Later, truth be told, you wasted a lot of time in ineffective king maneouvers, rather than just advance your e-pawn, allowing me enough tempi to push my own agenda - but alas, a time scramble... this is 3 0 blitz.

<AJ> is the strongest player at this site.

Year after year after year, and he's always one of the best, wins tournaments and championships, attracts students and admirers... maybe he forgets that when he opens his computer, a window opens to the entire planet Earth... he's out of warm, cozy Pensacola at that point...

You don't see him heading out to play in the big tournaments where there is a chance he will actually finish with a minus score.

He also has objective difficulties to reckon with.

Besides, online chess does give pleasure and he also has the Pensacola scene - not too bad I guess.

In New York - well it depends, of course there are many better players, and he would have to come there as an ordinary Joe, not as "THE life master" - but apart from that, I'm sure that he'd love it, especially as he still wants to improve.

I ask myself a question - what would happen if at some point I played b6? Houdini says it is balanced, and actually my Rb4, that I was so proud of, he calls a losing error! So much to learn indeed...

I do remember that point of the game. I thought that 48. Rb4 gave my b-pawn a necessary support, but that if I ran with 48. b6, Goldsby will have the time to capture my pawn on h3, run back to the b-file and sacrifice his rook on my pawn, and then the black pawns on the k-side may complicate my life, or even win embarrassingly against my rook! And my king is too far away... not so?

No - says Houdini. 48. b6 is equal. Then he acts real cheeky by putting my pride, 48. Rb4, in twelfth (yes, 12th) place as a move to choose... yeah, I really needed that sarcasm!

OK Houdi, I get it, you say 48. b6. And what if he sacrifices?

Bull! Says Houdini - now you watch...

And I watch in amazement how the white king and rook aren't actually so far... Houdini conclusively demonstrates that black has his own problem - such as accessibility of his own king to the arena, over lines guarded by my faithful rook...

Also some beautiful checkmating resources based on very subtle stalemate traps resulting from Black's pawn structure - so rich and bountiful!

Having Houdini at home is like inviting Carlsen and Ivanchuk into your own living room, having them play out and demonstrate variations you are interested in, and explain to you (again, in variations) why not this and why not that - issues that you, the improving player, are perpetually concerned with...

Funny thing - I did see that the guy ranted about my rating being 'low' (I admit - I peeked :-) although I now have him on ignore) - I'm now rated higher than him at the site, at 2023 to his 2010!

Secondly, he was telling this story about me dropping a rook in 11 moves in a simul? That's serious hallucination - I have really no idea what he's talking about... the last simul I played in was in 1996 or '97. I was then an 1850 player. It was back in Israel, a clock simul of 25 minutes, six players, against the excellent grandmaster Ronen Har Zvi (one who beat me 14:1 in blitz games where I had five minutes and he one - nothing even remotely like that ever happened when I played other GMs of comparable levels under the same terms), who is my friend.

In the simul I played a very good game in white and drew in a dynamic, unbalanced position (like, pieces were pretty balanced, but lines, ideas and threats were not).

A simul where I was really thoroughly trashed (and thrashed) was in 1989, against GM Dorfman who visited Israel. I was then an 1200 player and really was agape, as I never played a GM before, never experienced such raw intensity of play! There I dropped all of my position in really very few moves - he played an aggressive, tricky opening as white. So this is true, and it still remains a mystery to me how the good LM knows about it... of course he was just shooting in the dark.

He's right, it WAS just a 3 minute game.

But to still claim I was using an engine (albeit with the non-quite-English reservation, 'prolly' - the shade of an advance?)?

After I point out in my notes here at least two very clear errors, one of them game losing (if Mr. NM plays well, of course), that I performed in the game? And I'm sure there were more?