A loss for the ages.

Consider this, if you would. This was in the Team 45 45 league over at ICC. I played white, and I wanted to take the Evans Gambit for a spin. I lost in 19 moves.

Moves 1-7 were book, more or less.

Moves 13, 14 and 18 were forced.

I submit to you that I made a bad move on every other move. Not just bad because I didn't understand the position or missed seeing something. Bad for reasons that player of my moderate ability should know better.

Move 8: Pointless to pin the knight when the bishop is more useful on the queenside. Clogging up the middle of the board is not what you want to do when playing a gambit like that.

Move 9: Pointless to attack f7 once he's ready to castle.

Move 10: Closes the center, the exact opposite of what you want to do when playing down a pawn and looking exploit a development edge (which really I'd already squandered).

Move 11: Rips open both kings, when black is much better poised for a kingside attack.

Move 12: An ill-timed pawn grab that takes the queen even further away from the action.

Move 15: Initiates a race to get my queen to the kingside before his, even though I know his will get there first.

Move 16: Continues that race

Move 17: Ignores his threats entirely and walks into a forced mate.

Impressive, no? Not a single good move in the entire game :)

i agree, in the game the pawn grab was where it went downhill, 12 nd2 followed by a shift of pieces towards the kingside would probably be good/winning due to his exposed king and doubled f pawn

in the opening though, usually d4 is played before castle. also, ur supposed to take the e pawn with the d pawn on  move 8, not push forward.

also a general rules is that the queen's knight pawn is usually "poisoned" when taking, especially with queen

It looks to me like maybe that gambit would have worked after all.  I don't see how black avoids a forced trade of piece for pawn if white plays 9. d5  The Nc6 is in effect pinned by the threat of Qa4+, winning the a5 bishop.  I played 6 or 7 different lines, and the best continuation for black that I was able to find was 9. d5 Bxf3 10. gxf3 Qd7 11. dxc6 Qxc6

Qa4+ doesn't win the bishop after c6, I'm afraid. The bishop is then protected by the queen.

Jeeeeez, ok, thank you.  No more middle of the night analysis for me!