Latvian Gambit in action

Chess.com user NRMattison challenged me out of the blue, just as I was thinking "It'd be nice to play someone besides my brother, one of my friends, and the computer." NRMattison was ranked higher than me in online chess by about 100 points, which I figured would be perfect for improving my play.

 

Another nice coincidence was that I would be playing as black and I had just finished learning a few lines for the Latvian Gambit, which is an aggressive opening for black. This opening was recommended for players in my skill range for use against other players in my skill range, so I decided to try it out. Here's what happened:

 

Lately when I play as white I've been in the habit of doing odd (i.e. non d4 or e4) openings, so I may not get to experience the Latvian Gambit tried on me. On the other hand, maybe I'll open with 1. e4 a few times just to try and coax someone, because now I'm hungry to learn the best defenses to it!

Thanks to NRMattison for allowing me annotate our game for this blog post.