White to Play
Published in Chess Puzzles
Today is a real lesson game. There are two big lessons courtesy of the Evans Gambit. The first one is the devastating effect of a Ba3 move that stops Black from castling. The second one is the use of using center pawns to open lines to expose the opponent’s king. This is one of the reasons the Evans is still very popular in amateur play. Black’s careless development on move 9 underestimated the power of the pawn push and then again there was the decisive pawn push on move 15: 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.b4 Bxb4 5.c3 Ba5 6.d4 exd4 7.0–0 Bb6 8.cxd4 d6 9.Nc3 Nf6? 10.e5! dxe5 11.Ba3! Na5 12.Nxe5 Nxc4 13.Qa4+ Bd7 14.Qxc4 Be6 15.d5! Bxd5 16.Qa4+ c6 17.Rad1 Nd7 18.Nxd7 Qxd7 19.Nxd5 cxd5 SEE DIAGRAM
From Lehmann - Muller in 1952 20.Rxd5! and Black Resigned because after 20...Qxa4 21.Re1+, it’s mate in a few.
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