A LESSON FROM THE MASTERS....

The evans gambit is one of my pet openings, (at the moment)and here I present to you a game from one of the most lethal masters of his time. Chigorin.
the annotations are "borrowed" from chessmaster (TM) .
Enjoy the game and watch a master at work.




On move 9.......Na5,
At the time a popular defense in this "Normal Position" of the Evans, but later it was realized that, while eliminating the Bc4 was desirable in principle, Black in his undeveloped state could not afford the time lost.
As with all gambits, tempo is a crucial element and here black self destructs with this move which hopes to exchange the lethal the c4 bishop

After 12 Qa4+,
white embarks on recovering the knight with tempo on the king.
Here one can see that black desperately needs to develope but chigorin is relentless.

by the 26th move...
with alarm bells ringing, black eliminates the white knight on e6 on move 25 with 25....BXe6.
but positionally speaking it is out of the frying pan into the bonfire... since white captures with 26.fxe6 and the python stranglehold tightens.
Black has eliminated the intrusive Knight at e6, but the pawn that replaces it is at least as annoying. with hindsight, black should have played 23...Nf8.

32.e5 ! is earth shattering
With all the Black pieces tied down -- the Knight must shield the g7 pawn, and the Queen and Rook are tied to the defense of the d6 pawn -- White opens lines to the Black King with this pawn advance....

the only solid responce, 32....fXe5 is decisively met....
by 33.Nxd6+ RxNd6
34. fxe5+ Rf6
35.e8=Q+ KxQ
36.Qd7+ et cetera with mate to follow


No better is 32...dxe5 -- 33.Rd8 (threatening e8Q+) Nxe7 34.Qxg7+ Ke6 35.Nxe7, and there is no good defense to f4-f5 mate.

the rest is history

Moral of the game

• hold the initiative
• present your opponent with multiple problems
• when facing the Evans gambit or any other gambit for that matter, consider returning material to free up your pieces.