In his monthly Chess Life column, Andrew Soltis commented that Evans was "the first player to be widely honored for an opening we know he played".

Eventually, however, the second world chess champion Emanuel Lasker dealt a heavy blow to the opening with a modern defensive idea: returning the pawn under favourable circumstances.

In the 1990s, Garry Kasparov used it in a few games (notably a famous 25-move win against Viswanathan Anand in Riga, 1995[5]), which prompted a brief revival of interest in it.

Alternatively, 7...d6 8.cxd4 Bb6 is known as the Normal Position, in which Black is content to settle for a one-pawn advantage and White seeks compensation in the form of open lines and a strong centre.

Due to the wasted tempo, most commentators consider declining the Evans Gambit to be weaker than accepting it and returning the pawn at a later stage.

Aron Nimzowitsch claims in his book My System that declining the gambit does not lose a tempo, since b4 is developmentally unproductive— as is every pawn move, if it does not bear a logical connection with the centre.

This is often played by those unfamiliar with the Evans Gambit, and is arguably inferior to 5...Ba5, because 6.d4 attacks the bishop again and limits Black's options as compared with 5...Ba5 6.d4.

The Stone–Ware Defence, named after Henry Nathan Stone and Preston Ware, reinforces the e5-pawn and has been played by several grandmasters such as Andrei Volokitin, Alexander Grischuk and Loek van Wely.