Is the Latvian Gambit sound?

The Latvian Gambit rocks for Black.  It's my preferred opening with Black. I play the Fraser Defense. 

Here's an example of a game I played here on Chess.com. 

Welcome to the "there-is-only-one-way-to-play-chess" school. It's silly, really.

I asked my coach if I could play the Latvian Gambit until FIDE 2000. He said: of course you can! 

@ cigoL:

Ah, yes, the good ole Fraser variation. Very clever: Black "sacrifices" material for no compensation, but in that way he's guaranteed he will not blunder it later!

All that 4.Qh5+ stuff is funny, and probably winning for white as well (and 6.Qh4 is much better than 6.Qh3), but rather irrelevant: after the simple 4.d4, Black is as good as lost on move 4.

Maybe at your level, but seemingly not at club level or below. I've had a lot of success with the Fraser Defense. 

 After having played it OTB I concluded it it was more like gathering up a huge charge of static electricity and grabbing someone's arm; usually shocking(literally and figuratively) for the other guy, and can be very amusing... provided, of course, that you can stand the charge of electricity shooting through your arm in the first place.

Thank the lord that most people do not carry around opening books on how to defend against an opening :).

With the argumentation some are using most openings should be completely forgotten for black.

No one is saying the Latvian is sound. But it's a nice surprise weapon.

No. It's junk. Learn chess, not tricks.

Risky openings are certainly fun to play. But the Latvian is 100% unfounded, positionally, and white can have a very good game without carrying any book- just by playing regular, sane developing moves. For example, try to bust that one:

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 f5 3.Be2!?

Now 3...fe4 4.Nxe5 is a reversed KG, 3...Nc6 4.d4 a reversed Vienna, 3...Nf6 4.ef5 not  any better than the above, and so it goes. White's innocuous third move is a very handy tempo won over well-known positions in reverse, and Black will be hard pressed to equalize.

BTW I have not found any games registered after 3.Be2, so it maybe is fun to try it - playing white, that is!

The wheel was invented several thousand years ago, no need to reinvent it. The Latvian was invented at the romantic age of chess, and was fun- but today, even a relatively weak chess engine will burst your ...f5 bubble with no trouble at all.

Ah, yes, that magical water of Latvia!

Shirov, one of the most inventive and risky players currently, is Latvian. The combination magician Misha Tal was Latvian, too. But neither Shirov, nor Tal ever played the Latvian Gambit!

The question is not whether it is unsound, but rather, how unsound is it? 

I had to stop playing the Latvian because it was insufficiently unsound.  Now I often play the Elephant Gambit 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 d5 and I win more than half my games with it. 

In Live Chess, it's not really that important to debate whether an opening is unsound.  Very few people know these unusual openings enough to refute them over the board.  In 5 minutes or less, Black's superior knowledge of the opening more than compensates for any deficiency in the opening. 

To prove the point, I've been playing 1.e4 f5 2.exf5 Kf7 as Black and enjoying great results with it in 3 min and 1 min. 

OK, the Elephant Gambit is most probably unsound, but it is "healthily unsound": Black's second move does contribute to Black's development, and while being one or two pawns down in the critical variations, Black has sane piece play. Actually a good friend of mine, Greek IM P.Pandavos, has played this thing with Black even against moderately stong opposition, with fairly good results. He has also beaten myself, several times (in blitz games).

It does need to be treated with respect, if White wants to get something out of the opening.

The Latvian, on the other hand, is fairly innocuous. 3.Nxe5 is certainly best, and very close to a total refutation, but after every sensible white third move (even after 3.Be2), Black is hard pressed to justify the permanent weaknesses he voluntarily created as early as move two.

pfren, I have a couple of comments for you. 

1. Maybe 3. Be2 would work against the Latvian Gambit. But this is irrelevant, since I've never seen this move in any of my games (and I play the Latvian Gambit exclusively as Black in reply to 2. Nf3). 
2. Maybe there is a reason why there are no games with 2. Nf3 in the database? 
3. You contradict yourself a little, saying there is no reason to reinvent the wheel, while suggesting a new reply (3. Be2). That's exactly reinventing the wheel. 
4. Then you say that even a relatively weak engine will burst the Latvian Gambit. This isn't relevant either, for people playing humans, rather than engines. And whatever engine you are talking about would burst the same player, no matter what opening he or she plays. So, following your logic, we simply shouldn't play chess. Maybe the Latvian Gambit isn't sound, but neither is this argument. 

cigoL, coincidentally, my little Blackberry chess program plays Be2 against me. It always follows the same line:

1.e4 e5 2.Nf6 f5 3.Nxe5 Nc6 4.Nxc6 dxc6 5.Be2 Qh4 6.Nc3 fxe4 7.O-O and I proceed to bash my head like a seige ram against the castle walls for the rest of the game.

Well let's see...

3.Be2 is of course not the best move, but playable, since it does not land white in a bad position. 3.Nxe5 is the best move for white, but if you can have fun with no risk, then why not...

Actually I've been playing chess since 1973, and I've met the Latvian just once in a game with regular time controls. Since I was bored, and the opponent was rather weak, I tried 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 f5 3.ef5?! e4 4.Ng1!? which looks ridiculous, but it does have a point (actually it was a suggestion by the Caissiber chief, FM Stefan Buecker, who loves bizarre openings). Now Black plays the white part in a king's gambit accepted, but his pawn on e4 gives white a target, e.g. 3...Qg5 4.d3 Qxf5 5.de4 Qxe4+ 6.Be2 and then Nf3, 0-0 etc (the pawn on g2 is taboo if Black needs his Queen to stay on the board).

The opponent played badly and I had an easy (and boring) win, although objectively speaking after 4.Ng1 black should be able to equalize.

Ok, lets get a bit more serious.

@ wikipedian: I think that your concept is good, but you move the wrong knight at move three. Mr. Fraser would probably agree, as Black's game after 3...Nc6 4.d4! is simply horrible.

The only Latvian variation in the main line which is not a total disaster for Black, is 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 f5? 3.Nxe5 Nf6!

White can still claim some advantage by just playing simple chess, e.g. 4.ef5 Qe7 5.Qe2 d6 5.Nc4 (or 5.Nf3) and although Black has a nice advantage in development, white has a pawn with no real weaknesses. Black is not lost, but he will be hard pressed to justify the pawn investment- and there are no direct fireworks.You can find a flawed, but quite thorough analysis in a Buecker article in chesspub: http://www.chesscafe.com/text/kaiss45.pdf

And... no, I will not care to tell you about the analysis holes- you can work it out yourself!

Or 4.d4 (the choice of the late GM Bela Perenyi, who was a very aggressive player- not very good choice here, IMO) 4...d6 (4...fe4!? is sane, and probably better) 5.d5!? (Perenyi played 6.Nc3 and won, but not because he had any opening advantage) when black is not equal yet. 5.Nc3 and 5.Be2 are not really frightening for Black, and finally, the "official" refutation:

5.Bc4

The move is certainly dangerous, but not a "refutation".

If interested, I can be a bit more helpful.

Here's a way to find out empirically: Latvian Gambit Tournament.  Let's put this thing to the test! 

Hi melvin..., join the tournament, and try it out! 

pfren, you should join the tournament too, to put the Latvian Gambit to shame, not just in words, but in play. 

@ Melvinbluestone: Neither 8.Nxf8, nor 8.Nh4.

White is winning by the simple 8.Nc3 Qb4 9.a3 Qd6 (9...Qb6 10.Nxf8 Rxf8 11.Qxf5) 10.Nb5 Bb6 11.Nxf8

8.Nc3 Qc6 9.Nxf8 Qxg2 10.Qxg2 Rxg2 11.Nxh7 Nxh7 12.Nd5 Kd8 13.b3 is totally lost- factly white can also pick 9.Nf4, which is curtains, too.

Black has to sac the exchange if he wishes to stay in the game: 7...hg6 8.Qxh8 Qxg2 9.Rf1 Kf7, but white can be much better in many ways, e.g. 10.f4!?

Notice also that when faced with 3...Qe7 two strong GM's (Van den Doel and Kovchan) replied with 4.d4 and had no particular difficulty winning the game.

@ cigoL: Thanks, but I play only real OTB games, not interested in virtual ones.