How long is it still safe to eat cooked chicken left out?

I cooked some chicken on the barbecue last evening and brought it inside.  Worrying about flies or whatever I put it in the microwave temporarily to cool down while I ate the chicken for the evening while the remainder was for the next day.

TV on and doing other things I forgot it.  It sat in the microwave from 7pm to 1am.  It was room temperature, about 75 degrees for that time.

It really is hard for me to toss away expensive organic chicken so I thought I'd do an experiment for the sake of survival training.

First I looked online for guidelines.  2 hours is apparently the rule by the USDA for safe handling so it should go in the trash can.  But I'm not a restaurant and I am not asking anyone else to try it.  So what to do.

Lots of other people asked the same question and many said they had done the same with no problem up to 9 hours in some cases.  If if was covered it might be safer, maybe.

It was smoked on the barbie and we know that smoking all kinds of things has a preservative value of its own.  I put it in the fridge at 1 a.m.

9:30 am  next morning - I just popped a portion of it in the microwave and intend to give it a try.  Worst case If I see  any ill effects I'll eat a Pepto tablet to help suck up the toxins.

I'll let you know.  It is my breakfast   Meat? Yes, I know.  It is a habit.  I stay away from big carbs from breakfast.  Protein, fat, vegetables, and some carbs as a follow on.

9:45  YUMMY!!! I hope

Down it goes.

Noon:  No issues yet

Two PM.   No issues and I have more chicken yet since I split it up into smaller amounts.

2:30 I'm eating some more for lunch and this includes a drumstick along with a breast fillet.

3:15pm No problems yet.

10:00 pm No problems.

Next Day  No problems.

I suspect the smoked chicken gave it some more staying power than if I had just cooked it in the microwave.  For me this was enlightening in that tossing food is not necessarily required depending on the circumstances.  In this case barbecue smoked chicken does fairly well.

Disclaimer: I'm not food expert so I recommend you follow normal food safety rules and if you don't then you do so at your own risk.

My point here is that in desperate circumstances I know I have more options for food lasting without refrigeration.  Still, I wouldn't do this as a standard practice but consider it only under extraordinary circumstances.