Evans Gambit

Evans Gambit

a b c d e f g h 8 8 7 7 6 6 5 5 4 4 3 3 2 2 1 1 a b c d e f g h
Moves	1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.b4
ECO	C51–C52
Origin	1827
Named after	William Davies Evans
Parent	Giuoco Piano

The Evans Gambit is a chess opening characterised by the moves:

The Evans Gambit is an aggressive line of the Giuoco Piano, which normally continues with the positional moves 4.c3 or 4.d3. White offers a pawn to divert the Black bishop on c5. If Black accepts, White can follow up with c3 and d4, ripping open the center, while also opening diagonals to play Ba3 or Qb3 at some point, preventing Black from castling kingside and threatening the f7-pawn respectively. If Black declines, the b4-pawn stakes out space on the queenside, and White can follow up with a4 later in the game, potentially gaining a tempo by threatening to trap Black's dark-square bishop. According to Reuben Fine, the Evans Gambit poses a challenge for Black since the usual defenses (play ...d6 and/or give back the gambit pawn) are more difficult to pull off than with other gambits. (Interestingly, Fine was beaten by this gambit in a friendly game against Bobby Fischer, in just 17 moves.)

The Encyclopaedia of Chess Openings has two codes for the Evans Gambit, C51 and C52.

The gambit is named after the Welsh sea Captain William Davies Evans, the first player known to have employed it. The first game with the opening is considered to be Evans–McDonnell, London 1827, although in that game a slightly different move order was tried (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.0-0 d6 and only now 5.b4). In 1832, the first analysis of the gambit was published in the Second Series of Progressive Lessons (1832) by William Lewis. The gambit became very popular shortly after that, being employed a number of times in the series of games between McDonnell and Louis de la Bourdonnais in 1834. Players such as Adolf Anderssen, Paul Morphy and Mikhail Chigorin subsequently took it up. Eventually however, the second World Chess Champion Emanuel Lasker dealt a heavy blow to the opening with a modern defensive idea: returning the pawn under favorable circumstances. The opening was out of favour for much of the 20th century, although John Nunn and Jan Timman played some games with it in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and in the 1990s Garry Kasparov used it in a few of his games (notably a famous 25-move win against Viswanathan Anand in Riga, 1995), which prompted a brief revival of interest in it.