Chess openings - Italian Game: Evans Gambit

Welcome back to chessopenings.com. Today we're going to look at an aggressive gambit opening known as the Evans Gambit. It begins with the moves, pawn to e4, pawn to e5, knight f3, knight c6, bishop c4, bishop c5, and now the aggressive gambit move, pawn to b4. With this opening, White is aiming to get a big lead in development, get a big grip on the center, and he's looking to blow Black up literally from the first moves. Let's take a look. To reach the Evans Gambit, White opens up with a King's Pawn Opening, pawn to e4. Now after e5, he plays the standard move, knight f3 attacking the e5 pawn, and Black generally replies knight to c6. Now at this moment, White plays bishop to c4 as opposed to, say, bishop b5 which would have led to the Ruy Lopez. This is known as the Italian Game, and in the Italian Game, White is developing his bishop rapidly, and he's preparing the castle, but he's doing so in a way that leaves him with a few more aggressive options right from the first moves, since this bishop has some pressure down this diagonal. Now if Black plays the move, bishop to c5, as he often does, White now has the chance to play the Evans Gambit with the move, pawn to b4. Now, White's main plan of the position after bishop c5 is to achieve the moves, pawn to c3 and pawn d4, exploiting the bishop's position on c5 where it can be stabbed with tempo, and also aiming to build up a big share of the center. However, some very creative masters of old found that by playing pawn to b4 first, White can take a little bit of risk here. He can give up a pawn, but he can make it more difficult for Black to organize a defense, since now, after bishop takes b4, c2 to c3 happens with tempo, and on the very next move, White will play pawn to d4. It's this move, pawn to b4, this sacrifice on b4, which characterizes the Evans Gambit. So backing up to the position after pawn to b4, it is possible for Black to get a decent game simply by retreating the bishop to b6. This is a possibility, but today we're going to focus only on Black's accepting the Gambit on b4, which is by far his most popular option. Now after bishop takes pawn on b4, White does play c2 to c3 with tempo. Now the main move is bishop to a5, and it would look like this makes it very difficult for White to achieve d4, since there's this nasty little pin here which will make it difficult for White to recapture. However, White goes ahead, and he just plays d4 right away, anyway. After pawn takes pawn, his idea is simply to castle king side, and this is the position which normally arises. White is now down two full pawns, but he already threatens to recover one of the pawns, and he has big attacking chances in this position. For example, just like we talked about earlier, this bishop on c4 contributes to the possibility of trying to create a big attack on f7 as quickly as possible. So one of the ideas which White is looking to accomplish here is to overwhelm this point with moves like knight g5, or queen b3, or both moves, and it turns out that White has a lot of play in this position, for his two pawn sacrifice. Now, I want to be very clear up front that while there are many ways that this position can go horribly wrong for Black, theory does say that Black is OK in the Evans Gambit, and that he even has decent chances of gaining the initiative for himself. So if you play the Evans Gambit, you're taking a little gamble, a little risk with White. If your opponent is not prepared, as he often is not, you can definitely gain an excellent attacking position and win very many pretty games. On the other hand, if Black is well prepared, White needs to be ready to accept that he'll have to play carefully, simply to maintain equal chances. In fact, it's quite easy for Black to go wrong here right away. For example, if he tries to hold onto his two pawn plus by playing pawn takes pawn on c3, White already gains a very serious attack after, queen b3 attacking f7. Now Black normally plays queen to f6 to protect this point, and now White is able to just give Black a lot of hassles in this position. Pawn to e5 is an outstanding move here, with the idea that if Black captures on e5 with the knight, now rookie one would be very strong. After d6, White would have many ways to win, but probably the simplest would simply be queen b5 check, picking up a free bishop on a5 due to the fork. So Black cannot take on e5 and has to play the move, queen to g6, and now White simply continues knight take c3. He's still down two pawns, knight G to e7, but after bishop a3, White just has excellent compensation in this position for the two pawns. All of his pieces are in very attractive attacking post. For example, in a brilliant game played by the master Adolf Anderssen, Black continued castling king side, and now White played rookie d1. This sets up the threat to start harassing this queen, which is very badly placed on g6. The idea is to play bishop d3 at any time. Black is really just kind of out of moves here, and so he started to try to organize rook b8, trying to advance the B pawn either to b5 and then up to b4, and in fact this is a very common strategy in this position. Well, White now attacked the queen, and if the queen comes to e6, Black always has to worry about the move bishop takes h7 check, setting up a fork on g5. So Black's answer to this problem was a little bit unusual. I think that the queen should go to h5, after which, probably White can continue his attack with knight to e2, bringing the knight to f4. But instead he brought the queen, first of all, to this square, g4. This is probably a mistake. Now White continued rook f e1, actually an outstanding move, preparing to bring this rook to e4, and include the rook into the attack on the king. Black now played b5, and now White played h3. In this position, it's not so easy anymore for Black to simply retreat the queen to h5. Even though I still think that's the right move, White is beginning to generate attack after moves like rook to e4, bringing that rook to h4, and starting an attack on h7. So the position is already getting somewhat critical for Black. Instead, Black strangely moved the queen right to e6, and he had a point here. He believed that after bishop takes h7, which, in fact, was played, Black can simply play king h8. Now Black's idea was that White will have to do something about this bishop, and at the same time he needs to do something about this threat, pawn to b4. So in fact, White has no choice but to lose material in this game, but what Adolf Anderssen had seen was that after queen c2, which he, in fact, played, Black played pawn to b4. Now White delivered a crushing move, rook to e4, just leaving these pieces to be captured, bringing the rook to h4. In fact, the attack is so strong, there are four pieces, there's a rook, a queen, a bishop, a knight, all involved in the attack on the king. In fact, within four moves, Black had to resign. After a couple of mistakes by both sides, the position just fell apart for Black. This is a great example of how quickly White can generate a big attack, and this is what White is playing for in the Evans Gambit. So backing all the way up to the position after castling king side, where Black made this mistake of capturing on c3. After pawn takes pawn and castles king side, Black should not play pawn takes pawn, but it's just this kind of mistake which is very easy to make. It's the kind of thing that can make the Evans Gambit and other tactical variations of the Italian Game a lot of fun to play. Instead, Black has two better ideas. One is to just play solidly with pawn to d6 so that if White were to play queen to b3, for example, after queen f6, this idea of e5 has lost quite a bit of steam. In fact, some players have still tried to play e5 in this position, but it doesn't lead to the same results as in the game which we just saw. So this is one idea. However, I think this idea is a little bit too meek for Black, and after White just recaptures on d4, it's generally been found that White gets a very strong attack as compensation for his pawn. For example, White is already threatening to thrust forward with pawn to d5, and as we've already seen, this bishop on a5 can actually be something of a problem. Perhaps White can play d5 and queen to a4 check, and Black already has to be wary about some of the possibilities here. Many games, in fact, have continued with bishop to b6, getting this bishop to a safer square, but in fact, White simply played pawn to d5, and White has a lot of compensation for the pawn. If you have access to a database, you can find many lovely, attractive games which we'll play in this position. You'll get a clear sense of just how fun and how strong this position can be for White. Incredibly, it looks like this double pawn sacrifice really puts a lot of pressure on Black. It looks like Black doesn't have enough central presence, and these threats to f7, they come very rapidly and very difficult for Black to parry. In fact, it wasn't until about a decade ago that Black players started to routinely and definitively show that Black has an excellent defensive resource here, and that move is knight G to e7, an excellent move by Black. Now the idea is that after White plays this natural move, pawn takes pawn, which is actually generally played in this position, Black is still ahead a pawn, and now has the move, pawn to d5. This really, really messes up some of White's key ideas, since after pawn takes pawn, knight takes pawn, look at this beautiful blockading square for the knight on d5. First of all, it blunts the bishop on c4, and secondly, by making the D pawn immobile, the D pawn cannot advance in this position. White doesn't get such easy play with his dark squared bishop either. For example, in many positions, White is normally looking forward to playing d5, followed by bishop to b2, but in this position he lacks this possibility. Now commonly, White will try to usurp this knight on d5 starting with the move, queen to b3, but Black has not too difficult of a time holding onto this knight. In fact, he normally plays the move, bishop to e6. Now while it's true that White can recover his gambited pawn now on b7, theory says that Black has an excellent game and equal chances after the move, knight D to b4, a surprising move, but it's been known now for a while that this messy position does not offer anything substantial for White. Some players have also tried the move bishop a3 instead of taking on b7, but here, too, an excellent idea has been found for Black consisting of the move bishop to b4. Now after bishop takes b4, knight C takes b4, a3, and knight c6. Now it's also been shown that White should probably capture his pawn, and after knight a5, White has regained his gambited pawn, but he can in no way expect to be better in this position. Another attempt by White to gain the advantage here is to play knight to g5, just piling up on this point as quickly as possible. Of course, if Black were to castle, well now queen h5 would look exceedingly strong here. However, Black just continues with his move, pawn to d5 once again, and now after pawn takes pawn, he makes use of this attractive idea, knight to e5, bringing his knight closer to the scene of the action and helping with the defense in this position. Also at the moment, there's an attack on the bishop, so White ordinarily plays now bishop to b3, and Black simply castles. It's been known for a while that this position is probably even slightly better for Black, at least, equal chances here, as after for example, pawn takes pawn, knight g4, even though the material is temporarily equal, White still has some problems defending his d5 pawn. Magically, it suddenly looks like White is the one who has fallen behind in development. His queen side pieces are not making favorable impression in this position. So knight g5 has also been discovered to not alleviate White's concerns in this position. Backing up to this move, knight g e7, it's due to this move and the supporting analysis that White's attack cannot yield him any real chances of the advantage. Of course, none of this means that White cannot head in for the double pawn sacrifice position. It just means that he needs to be aware that if Black is well prepared and is well aware of this move knight to g e7, and also knows the supporting analysis, White will have to work to keep the game level. So there is a risk of White not getting this attack that he had hoped for. Modern masters of today have also developed some other ideas for White in order to avoid some of the analysis which comes up. They don't necessarily offer White more chances of the advantage, but they offer him some chances to get some less analyzed positions, which are still complicated and give him an opportunity to outplay his opponent. Those ideas still continue with pawn to d4, and now after pawn takes pawn, instead of castling king side, White has also experimented with this move, queen to b3, immediately attacking f7, but also more critically helping to keep control over the d5 squares so that now after queen to f6, now White castles king side. This antidote, knight G to e7, doesn't look quite as good anymore, since after just pawn takes pawn, there is no move, pawn to d5, in this position anymore. Of course, if knight takes pawn, the trades on d4 would allow White to play bishop b2 with excellent position, not to mention that f7 is also hanging in this position. So Black needs to be a little bit more careful about how he addresses this position, and he does not have access to the idea knight to g e7, followed by d5. Instead he usually plays bishop b6 in this position, defending the d4 pawn. Now White once again plays the move e5, and once again if knight takes e5, then rook to e1 will just create too many problems, followed by, say, he takes d4. So instead, Black plays queen to g6, and now White captures on d4. At the moment he is only down one pawn, and if Black plays knight takes d4, after knight takes d4, bishop takes d4, knight c3, White appears to have sufficient compensation for the pawn. For example, he may try to play something like knight d5 or knight b5 very quickly in this position, creating threats against c7. In fact, Black most often does not take on d4 in this position, but he still has a very decent game after moves, like knight G to e7 or knight to a5. But in both cases, once again, White has some opportunities to try to outplay his opponent by playing aggressively, and maybe can take advantage of the fact that Black will not know so much about this particular kind of position. Finally, I should point out one more defensive system against the Evans Gambit. After this move, pawn to c3, instead of bishop a5, Black can also retreat to the more humble e7 square. White naturally continues d4 in this position, and now Black's idea is not to take pawn takes pawn, but instead he's going to use the availability of this a5 square to play knight a5. Now theory holds that after both the quiet move, bishop to e2, or after knight takes e5, followed by knight takes e4, and then once again, Black's critical thrust pawn to d5, pawn takes pawn, queen takes pawn. In both cases, the arising positions are unclear and give roughly equal chances to both sides. So this is also an attractive way for Black to look at this gambit. Of course, White again has decent chances of developing play. In this case he has a central preponderance, but theory holds that Black has enough play in order to get decent counter-play in these kinds of positions. That's it for today. If you love sharp, attacking chess and don't mind taking some risk to achieve it, the Evans Gambit is right up your alley. Studying these positions for White can do a lot to develop any player's attacking instinct. On the other hand, if you're Black and you think you may face the Evans Gambit, you owe it to yourself to review this video a couple of times and know some of the antidotes which have been prepared for Black, and which give Black excellent opportunities to gain equal chances, or even some decent chances of gaining the initiative. I hope you've enjoyed this as much as I have, and I'll see you soon.