Death of the Latvian Gambit

Is it time for the Latvian Gambit to be put back on the shelf?  After reading Jeremy Silman's articles on the opening, it appears that it is losing blood in many places.  Is it standing tall despite the attempt of destruction?

Silman is an awesome writer, but he usually says the word "refute" about 400 times when mentioning any gambit. also he possesses much better technique than us, so the advantage he can get from white in the latvian might be desisive.

for me Ive seen a few refuting lines, and by far Id rather play the white side of them, but black looked fine.

theres still a lot of juice in the latvian imo, but more used as a secondary weapon

The latvian gambit will live on and never be refuted.

What about the main line with 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 f5 3.Nxe5?

You gave 3...Bc5 which is a new move.  You have not analysed 5.Bc4 in the 4.d4 variation though, which I think is the strongest for white.

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 f5 3.Nxe5 Bc5 4.d4! Bb6 5.Bc4! Qh4 6.0-0 Nf6 7.Nf3 Qg4 8.exf5 d5 9.Re1+ Kd8 10.h3 Qxf5 11.Bd3 Qh5 12.c4! dxc4 13.Bxc4 Re8 14.Re5 Bf5 15.Bd3 g6 16.g4 Qxh3 17.gxf5 Qg4+ 18.Kf1 and black is in serious trouble down a piece.  What do you think GambitKing?

Conquiscador do you want to play a game using the lativan gambit? You play white and I play black?

Sure.

ok I will send you the challenge

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 f5 3.Nxe5 Qf6 4.Nc4 fxe4 5.Nc3 Qf7 6.Ne3 c6 7.d3 exd3 8.Bxd3 d5 9.0-0 Bc5 10.b4 Bd6 11.Re1 Ne7 12.Nexd5 cxd5 13.Nb5 Bxb4 14.Rb1! seems much better than the moves silman gave in his articles, the idea found in chesspub.

This move seems to roast black pretty badly.  I guess 9...Bc5 is refuted.

Ou man, I gotta be following that game!

And no, I DO NOT think its gonna be "dead" in some years...there are billions of millions variation and traps in the L.G...of course there are also billions of millions of refutations, but not all of them actually make white "winning"... 

Just like the old saying: " Sometimes you have to play badly to win..."

The Latvian's chief advantage is the quagmire late opening and early middle game positions produced, in which Black hopes to see White misplay. My memory is not strong enough to get to move 7 in that opening. But now that I'm playing 1.e4 again, I have opened myself up to the Latvian.

There is no one that plays the Latvian at the top GM Level so that it is difficult to know for certain whether it is refuted, but certainly it is not 'standing tall.' There are other gambits that actually are seen at top GM level at least occasionally.

Yep, nice move with 9.Be2, black looks toast.

Black has one more tricky option.

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 f5 3.Nxe5 Bc5 4.d4 Qe7 5.Qh5+ g6 6.Nxg6 Qxe4+ 7.Be3 Nf6 8.Qg5 Rg8 9.Qxf6 Rxg6 10.Qh8+ Bf8 11.Nc3 Qe6 12.0-0-0 and black is in serious trouble down a pawn and behind in development, not to mention the kingside is an absolute mess.  White continues to have a strong initiative.

It appears that the variation Gambit King gave with 3...Bc5 is not a good option for black as it is refuted.

There is an article by Clyde Nakamura on this variation:

http://www.chessville.com/UCO/CN/LatvianGambit3c5Variation.htm

However, he mentions in the article that he has switched to Elephant's Gambit.

Unfortunately, he does not address the best move in my opinion 4.d4

I've played the Lat a few times and I always feel that I am losing---until I win. It is the scariest opening I ever tried.  I don't think that I have the nerves to play it very often.

Now for the Frasier Variation.  I think that the variation is in crisis in a few key lines. 

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 f5 3.Nxe5 Nc6 4.Qh5+ g6 5.Nxg6 Nf6 6.Qh4 Rg8 7.Nxf8 Rg4 8.Qh6 Rxe4+ 9.Be2 Qe7 10.Nxh7 Rxe2+ 11.Kd1 Ng4 12.Qg6+ Kd8 13.Qg8+ Qe8 14.Qxe8+ Rxe8 15.Rf1 Rh8 16.h3 Rxh7 17.hxg4 fxg4 18.d3

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 f5 3.Nxe5 Nc6 4.Qh5+ g6 5.Nxg6 Nf6 6.Qh4 Rg8 7.e5 Nxe5 (7...Rxg6 8.exf6 Qxf6 9.Qxf6 Rxf6 10.c3 d5 11.d4 f4 12.Bd3 h5 13.Nd2) 8.Nxe5 Qe7 9.Be2 Qxe5 10.d4 Qa5+ 11.Kd1

Where is the Latvian Gambit fire brigade to dous the flames?

Now an improvement was suggested after the following:

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 f5 3.Nxe5 Qf6 4.Nc4 fxe4 5.Nc3 Na6!?

I believe that it is not good enough for black.

6.d3 Bb4 7.Bd2 exd3 (7...Qe6 8.dxe4 Nf6 9.Qe2; 7...Ne7 8.dxe4 0-0 9.Qe2 d6 10.a3 Nc6 11.e5 Qg6 12.0-0-0) 8.Bxd3 Ne7 (8...Qe6+ 9.Ne3; 8...Qe7+ 9.Ne3)  9.0-0 0-0 10.a3 and white has a fantastic position and a pawn up in all lines.  Black has some counterplay, but it will be a very difficult game to draw.

The Latvian Gambit does not follow the basic opening principles. It develops pawns instead of minor pieces, develops the queen before the minor pieces and exposes the kingside. For these reasons it is very uncommon and is not recommended to be played.

Actually in the line, Stephen Buecker found 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 f5 3.Nxe5 Qf6 4.Nc4 fxe4 5.Nc3 Na6 6.a3! and white has a strong advantage in all lines.  This can be found in Kassiber 44-46 if I remember correctly.

I think that the thread at chesspub has gone much deeper into the soundness of the Latvian Gambit.  We have covered most of the critical lines.

http://www.chesspub.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1262014233