Preventing perpetual - a rook sacrifice

Analysis of Moskvitch - Jiganchine, Winnipeg 2002.

White to Move.

 

White is up a huge amount of material, but the placement of his pieces is least fortunate. Black is threatening with perpetual after 45. Kf1 Ne3+ 46. Ke1 Ng2 + 47. Kd1 Ne3. That's a very common setup with the rook and a knight giving perpetual, I first time saw it in Bronstein's annotations in "Zurich 1953". Amazingly, there is only one move that wins for White: 45. Rc7!! By giving up the rook White breaks down the coordination of Black's pieces. 45. ... Rxc7 46.Qh2 +. Or 45. ...Nxc7 46. Kf1 Nd5 47. Qe5.

Computer assisted analysis does lead to funny positions sometimes...