A defensive brilliancy

If you're White in the position diagrammed below, it helps to have nerves (and a brain) of silicon. Although White's queen and rook are potentially a lethal combination, they have no checks available that don't hang. White's bishop also isn't helping the attack. Meanwhile, Black threatens Qd1#, and if White stops that with 46.Re1, Black grabs the bishop with 46...Qc2+ 47.Ka1 Qxc4 wins with 46...Nbc2 or 46...Ndc2. Alternatively, 46.Qg1 seems a clever way to get the queen into the attack, but Black takes the bishop, 46...Qc2+ 47.Ka1 Qxc4, then hides his king from the checks on b5: 48.Qh2+ Ka8! 49.Re8+ Kb7 50.Qb8+ Ka6 51.Qc8+ Kb5 52.Qd7+ Ndc6.

Nonetheless, White has an amazing drawing line! Can you see it?

Stalemate seems impossible: after 45...Kb8 White has six pieces, including two pawns and his king, and all of them have moves! Yet it all clicks in problem-like fashion: after 46.Bb3!! Nxb3, White's bishop is gone, his king is stalemated, and his b-pawn is blocked. Then 47.Qf4+! gxf4 hangs the queen and blocks the f-pawn, leaving only the "crazy" rook at large. "Desperado, why don't you come to your senses?" Note that the knights stalemate White's king all by themselves, so White needn't worry about 50...Qxd7. Black has other moves available besides 46...Nxb3, but in all lines White has at least a forced draw. Glorious!

This is probably the greatest stalemating combination of all time, surpassing the likes of Boyd-Glimbrant, Alicante 1992, where Black had a mobile queen, rook, knight, and pawn before embarking on the stalemating combination. See my game collection for more fine stalemates. But this one is hard to beat.