Nunn was wrong about the Latvian Gambit and his practical refutation

This is the practical line  John Nunn  recommends vs Latvian Gambit in the Leonhardt Variation .

I have played this line so many times with black pieces,  White is a pawn up for any direct compensation for black.

I have beatean to many grand masters like peter svidler and many others in blitz games with Latvian Gambit (in c24 you can check my games  and i really had a great succeed with Latvian Gambit more than with another openings)

 But i always had a problem in two critical lines,  one of them were in the Main Line  after 7.f3 , Tony Kosten´s book do not solve this line to keep playing in the spirit of the latvian gambit.

Finally i found Be7-Nh6  set up to fix the problems with black .  

But still i did not know how to deal properly against the Nunn reccomendation.   

But finally i had the solution, how to deal vs the "weakneses" of the white side. 

What is this supposed to mean? Practical refutation?
Does that mean the gambit is unsound but humans cant refute it?

"black is fine" well by Latvian Gambit standards perhaps, but objectively I see a position where white's up a pawn and he's not getting mated or anything. White can find some more useful location for the knight and while black has symbolic comp for a pawn, I'd take white. I'm sure your omission of the rest of the game was intentional

Well he's trying to justify the Latvian Gambit lol

What's worse is that White didn't even do anything amazing. Anyone could play these moves as White while Black is going through convolutions just to get the pieces out. Idunno about this man.

Practical refutation: 3.Nc3! followed by d2-d4.

very good pfren, that is a critical line, luckily it's very rare.   

chess is about win games  , no play perfect chess  and latvian gambit is a very good practical opening , i proved , you can see my stats with LG vs   grand masters in 3 minutes games. 

You can see also in slow games   nowadays  daring Grand Masters are doing very well too.   ( I used to play in slow games but i then i considered to play more solid chess because in slow chess you do not need risk so much ,  the variance is high in tactical positions)

3.Nc3 is very annoying,   5.Ng4 or 5.d4 both are complicated to deal with black.   But as i said ,  it´s not very common white wil gona play that lines,  so in practical chess   LG is fantastic weapon.

 I encourage you to play  Latvian Gambit u will surprise yourself, you will love this opening once you learn the main structures.   

What's the best book on the Latvian Gambit?  Kosten's? 

Yes... but it's pre-computer era book, most of the analysis is obsolete.

Thanks for the heads up Pfren.  At my level they don't follow computer moves anyway.   Already bought it...yep, saw it was 1995.   Hmmm, wasn't Mikhail Tal Latvian? 

 He is Latvian, he is still alive.

The thing about the Latvian is that White is clearly better unless he does a swan dive over the edge.

I don't think anyone needs a book on the Latvian Gambit in my opinion.  I think all anyone needs to know is what Pfren said.  3.  Nc3 then d4 later.  Thank you Pfren, you saved me a lot of games where I could have possibly played against the Latvian gambit and did some stupid response because up until now I was just winging the Latvian gambit on the white side.  I've decided that John Nunn just merely wrote a bunch of crapola because that line that he gave is just blah to fill a page.  (I will never buy a book written by John Nunn knowing this)  I mean why try to dodge a bullet when you could just play Nc3?  So what if you are not up a pawn in the opening a pawn doesn't really amount to much at all in the opening phase of the game which is why the guy is gambit-ing that pawn in the first place.  If I where a GM maybe I could solidly play the rest of the game and win easily no matter who I was playing against, but I'm not a GM, never will be, and I'm sure even a GM might have a hard time transitioning to a win just by being up a pawn in the opening game.  I've played enough games to know how a chess player could prolong the game to know that it can go on for a very long time.  Seems like a boring position is among us in the John Nunn variation of this opening, and I never finished reading Silman, king of boring positions.    Yeah I know I'm suppose to learn how to deal with boring positions if I want to become a better chess player but if I had two options I'd pick Nc3 any day of the week, regardless of how much I knew about boring positions.

Tal sadly is still not alive; maybe alive only in our hearts.

  Seems he played his last game against a 29 year old Garry Kasparov while Tal in his hospital bed.  He made a Knight sac, Kasparov took it, then Tal attacked with his Queen...Kasparov lost on time in this blitz game.  Tal died a few days later. 

@JohnnyKGB (I thought his avatar was Eddie Murphy, lol)  says he wins lots of high level games with the Latvian, playing Black.  I think I"ll pursue it.  

In this your game against that Canadian NM, I was just wondering why you didn't take the free pawn with your next move?  You played Qg6 instead.  Just asking; you're the expert on this Latvian.  Does the Qg6 induce perhaps more mistakes or set traps for opponent??   (KGB went on to win  the game anyway)

It was a pre-move  mistake,   Qg6 many times is automatic,   but several times it is true some guys blunder the d4 pawn playing Nd2 right. 

i see this new gambit...look very interesting...maybe i will by a book on it...is there book that show most popular mistakes?  Most book today show how GM play, and if show at all, show tipical mistakes in fine print way into book.  My level is no GM play; i want to see tipical mistakes where i can capotilize.   Even Mr Johnny show GM moves till 7th move; my opponent wont do that. 

  i look at the youtube and 2 guys showing LG.  One talk so low cannot here him.  Other guy, i think drinking whisky.   YouTube stuff often only show perfect moves to, GM moves, not normal mistakes.  

  i will try this at club meeting next week, shock, freek out and take by surprise the old men there.  Most of them about 1400 level OTB.   One 1700 player, the best.  Make his eye pop out with this new Latvian Gambit. 

I am not sure what JohnnyKGB had in mind as the third possibility for White on move 11, but the GM John Nunn suggestion was 11. c4.