Russell Sherwood Sunday, March 22, 2020
A few people have enquired as to who the William Davies Evans was and why we are running a tournament named after him.
William Davies Evans is known in Chess circles through the Evans Gambit, seen after 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.b4.
A regular favourite amongst club player’s and still an occasional choice with elite players (as a surprise weapon) in over the board chess, how does it fare in modern correspondence chess?
Looking at the stats:
- Chessbase online database 57%
- Megabase 2020 56%
- Engine only games show White with a sub 50% score.
- The line is almost unplayed in recent elite level CC – 1 game drawn in recent times.
A rather unclear position! Older engines show the position as significantly favourable for black, yet more modern engines show a close to zero evaluation.
Looking at wider ICCF games (results 2015 onwards and not having both players above 2500) we see a 52% score, with relatively low draw percentage.
So an area worth examination for the ambitious CC player possibly?!
References
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evans_Gambit
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Davies_Evans
Evans Gambit
