You can study the Evans Gambit move list all day, but nothing teaches it like watching a master swing the b-pawn forward and go for the throat. The Evans has one of the great highlight reels in chess — a 19th-century immortal that still leaves people speechless, and a modern world-champion revival that proved a 170-year-old gambit can beat the best player alive. Here are the games worth replaying, with notes on exactly what to steal from each.
If you’re still learning the line, start with the main line move by move and then come back to enjoy these in full.
The 30-second version
- Anderssen–Dufresne, 1852 (“Evergreen”): the Evans immortal — sacrifice a rook and a queen to mate the king.
- Kasparov–Anand, 1995: a world champion dusts off the Evans and beats the future world champion with it. The revival game.
- A model attack: an engine-verified line showing the classic Qb3 + d4 + f7 plan, so you can play this stuff yourself.
Game 1: Anderssen–Dufresne, 1852 — the “Evergreen Game”
If the “Immortal Game” is chess’s most famous sacrifice-fest, the Evergreen Game is its more polished sibling — and it’s a pure Evans Gambit. Adolf Anderssen, the strongest player of the romantic era, flings the b-pawn (4.b4) at Jean Dufresne and never looks back.
Step through the line
Move by move — press Next to advance, Back to rewind.
Anderssen–Dufresne, Berlin 1852 — the Evergreen Game, finished with a stunning double sacrifice.
What’s happening: Anderssen gives back nothing and grabs everything — development. By move 11 (11.Ba3) every White piece is screaming toward Black’s king, which is still stuck in the center. The finish is the legendary part: 20.Rxe7+!! Nxe7 21.Qxd7+!! Kxd7 22.Bf5+ — he throws away his rook and his queen to drag the Black king onto a square where it gets mated: 22…Ke8 23.Bd7+ Kf8 24.Bxe7#.
What to learn: this is the Evans philosophy taken to its absolute extreme — a pawn (and then a whole pile of material) for an attack the defender can’t survive. You won’t get a double sacrifice every game, but you will learn the most important Evans lesson: when your pieces all point at an uncastled king, material stops mattering. Notice how Black never got time to untangle. That’s the gambit doing its job.
Game 2: Kasparov–Anand, 1995 — the revival
Fast-forward 143 years. For most of the 20th century the Evans was filed under “romantic museum piece, refuted.” Then at the 1995 PCA World Championship, Garry Kasparov — the strongest player on Earth — pulled out the Evans Gambit against Viswanathan Anand and won. The chess world’s jaw hit the floor, and the Evans roared back into fashion.
Step through the line
Move by move — press Next to advance, Back to rewind.
Kasparov–Anand, PCA World Championship 1995 — the modern Evans revival, White piling up on the stranded king.
What’s happening: Anand defends the modern way — 5…Be7 and 6…Na5 to trade off White’s prized c4-bishop. But Kasparov doesn’t need fireworks; he just keeps the initiative. He recaptures the gambit pawn (8.Qxd4), pushes 9.e5 to cramp Black, and slowly squeezes. By move 15.Bh6 and 23.Nd5, Black’s king is caught on f7 with the pieces in a tangle, and White’s pressure becomes overwhelming. Anand was lost here and soon resigned.
What to learn: the Evans isn’t only about a move-12 knockout. Kasparov shows the strategic side — recover the pawn, keep the initiative, and exploit the slightly worse king position move after move. Even when Black defends “correctly” with the bishop trade, White’s lead in activity can be a lasting practical edge. This is the game that tells you the Evans is real, not just pretty.
Game 3: a model Evans attack (engine-verified)
History is great, but you want to know how the attack flows when both sides play natural moves. Here’s a clean, engine-checked model line that shows the textbook Evans plan: chase the bishop, build the center with c3 + d4, point the queen and bishop at f7, and let the punches land.
Step through the line
Move by move — press Next to advance, Back to rewind.
A model Evans attacking setup — White builds the big d4 center and rakes the long diagonal with Ba3.
What’s happening: after the standard 5.c3 Ba5 6.d4 exd4 7.O-O, White castles to keep the initiative, then recaptures with 8.cxd4 to plant the classic Evans pawn center. After 8…d5 9.exd5 Nxd5, White unfurls 10.Ba3! — the move from the Evergreen Game — slicing down the long dark diagonal at Black’s uncastled king while the c4-bishop and d4-pawn squeeze the center. White is a pawn down on paper, but every piece is doing a job.
What to learn: this is the Evans you’ll actually play. The recurring ideas — don’t grab the pawn back too early, castle to keep the initiative, and keep a bishop and knight trained on f7 — show up in almost every Evans game. Master this flow and you’ll understand both immortal games above on a deeper level.
How to study a master game (the right way)
It’s tempting to click through these once and move on — but you’ll learn ten times more with a little structure. Here’s the method strong players use:
- Play it once for the story. Just enjoy the flow and the finish. Don’t analyze yet.
- Find the turning point. In the Evergreen, it’s where Anderssen commits to the king-hunt over saving material. In Kasparov–Anand, it’s where Black’s king gets stuck on f7.
- Spot the recurring idea. Notice how often the c4/b3-bishop and an open center show up — that’s the Evans’s DNA.
- Guess the next move. Cover the moves and predict the master’s choice. Guess wrong, and you’ve found a gap worth filling.
Do that with even one of these games and your own Evans play will sharpen fast. You’re not memorizing — you’re absorbing patterns.
Why these three together?
We picked them on purpose to show the gambit’s full range. The Evergreen (1852) is the romantic era at its most brilliant, where sacrifice was a way of life. Kasparov–Anand (1995) is the modern, strategic Evans — proof a world champion trusts it. And the model line is the everyday version you can play this weekend. Same four opening moves, two centuries apart, three different flavors of the same fearless idea. For the full strategic context behind each branch, the variations page breaks down exactly what every line is trying to do.
Three games, three lessons
- Evergreen: when your pieces all point at the king, material is negotiable — value the initiative.
- Kasparov–Anand: the Evans wins strategically too — keep the pawn back and the initiative.
- Model attack: castle, hold the recapture, and keep a bishop and knight aimed at f7.
Put them together and you’ve got the whole Evans: a brawl or a slow squeeze, and the greats have won both ways.
Keep climbing
- Back to the Evans Gambit overview
- The main line move by move
- Evans Gambit variations
- Evans Gambit traps
- All openings: the /openings/ hub
- Build the foundations with opening principles, or compare with the Italian Game.
Written and fact-checked by the Chess Lab Academy Editorial Team (AI-assisted, human-edited) · Games and lines checked against mainstream opening theory and verified with Stockfish 17 · ECO C51–C52 · Last verified 2026-06-25 · Sources · How we verify content.