In my eyes, there doesn't seem to be much point to 4...Be7 - if you wanted your bishop there, why not 3...Be7? White has grabbed space on the queenside for free and can either guard the pawn or ignore it and continue developing - if black takes the pawn with the knight then the game probably end up looking like a 5...Be7 Evans accepted anyway, so you won't have disrupted white's thinking much.
4...Bb6 looks better, keeping a beady eye on f2 and pressure against d4.
5.b5 looks tempting for an unprepared white, but is meant to be rubbish e.g.
That 5.a4 is gutless. It's an Evans GAMBIT for christ sake.
Toss the opening out the window and play chess.
5.b5! Na5 6.Bxf7+ Kxb 7.Nxe5+
Two pawns and an uncatled King. (similiar to the Cochrane gambit).
I have played that OTB and won.
And I don't care what theory or a box says - OTB this OK.
Only one lad has had the nerve to play it one here. A 1400 player.
He mated Black in 13 moves.
And you - JDchess.
Take the b-pawn and stop being such a wimp by declining gambits.
Take all offered pawns and give them back with venom.
Strewth.
Captain Evans gives us a wonderful gambit and you lot want to decline it.
Call youselves Chess players.........
This is me playing this line OTB . I sac my Bishop, I sac my Knight,
still two piece down I sac my Queen. Then win.
And this was one of my quiet positional games.
G. Chandler - Dr. Ratcliff, Edinburgh League, 1983
And you - JDchess.I'd just like to say for the record that I never decline the gambit. I was asking more for the lines so as to get white's perspective should black decline. I can't after all make him take the pawn. I just get lost if I can't play Qb3 which is really the whole point of the thing in my eyes, going for pressure on f7. This may sound like defensiveness after the fact but in reality I'm with you.
Take the b-pawn and stop being such a wimp by declining gambits.
Take all offered pawns and give them back with venom.
Strewth.
Captain Evans gives us a wonderful gambit and you lot want to decline it.
Call youselves Chess players.........
And thanks a lot for the games in your post. Very nice.
It's good you don't decline the gambit. Keep it up!
Declining the Evans Gambit is the equivalent of losing the will to live. You'd do better drawing a sharp blade across your throat than play something really horrible like 4...Bb6.
As Greenpawn says, do you want to play chess, or do you want to knit? Faced with a ball of wool, knit. Faced with the Evans Gambit, play chess!