Our club has a 2300 player (he is president of the club) and he says any opening you have studied and know well, including the Latvian (which was the opening that started the discussion) you should play. Chances are you know the opening much better than your opponent and will fare better no matter what the conventional wisdom is, or your opponent's rating unless he is a GM. Example, I am 1400+ rated USCF and I played our 2300 rated player in a tournament and I played the Scandinavian. I nearly won but for a slight move order mistake in the late middle game. Time controls were game in 30 with no increment. Had I played an ordinary Sicilian or French or any other common opening, he'd have crushed me in a dozen moves. Instead, I kept even with him on the clock (we each had 3 minutes left) and it took him 51 moves before he ended all hope and forced me to resign.
So if you find an opening you like enough to study that you REALLY know it well....PLAY IT. Never mind the know-it-alls shouting basic principles at you, ridiculing you....ignore them....because you will succeed in at least four ways. One, you will confuse many opponents and win games you otherwise would have lost. Two, you will benefit from study and more easily study other openings building a wide range of repetoire. Three, you will know how to handle these openings when played against YOU. Four, you will have FUN!!!
The Grob's Attack, and Why We Don't Play it More???
You nearly won but you slipped up. Chess is 99% tactics. The stronger player will see more tactics than you. He can wait for you to slip up and win rather than pushing too hard.
I don't play the Grob, because I firmly believe it's my opponent's job to wreck my kingside pawns.
In other words, you prefer to play "wreck"less chess with your kingside pawns...
When you say "we", who do you mean? The Grob has never been more than a novelty, at best. All black has to do is not play 1..d5 and absolutely do not take the "free" g-pawn. Someone played it against me today. I simply played 1..e5 and establish a King's Indian setup and won in very picturesque fashion.
I don't want to seem cruel, but both of these games are just awful. Once you get above 1500, you'll regret ever posting such dribble.
"He can wait for you to slip up and win rather than pushing too hard."
First, you are assuming my opponent was not "pushing" to win. Wrong. He played the book moves through most of the opening theory. He then deviated in an attempt to trip me up or cause me to use time (30 min/game). I found an excellent move and kept with him. Furthermore, he did not "wait for me to slip up" and he didn't go easy on me. How do I know? He told me. He also said he was impressed at how well I knew the opening and played after he deviated. So don't be assuming.
You are entitled to your own choice of play...and so am I. Maybe I played the game of my life and will never do better but this I know for a fact... I played a 2300 player (2304 to be exact), and it took him 51 moves to force me to resign (I could have gone on a half dozen more). Had I played ANY other opening, he could have beaten me twice, maybe three times in 51 moves TOTAL for all games put together.
Now according to the near 1000 point difference in our ratings, I should have been wiped out long before 50 moves had elapsed....especially considering the average game is less than 40 moves.
One day (if it hasn't happened already, more than once even) you and your kin will find yourselves on the losing end of some "inferior" opening. Your only solace will be IF your opponent had played that opening when you were more improved (if ever) THEN you would have won. (Maybe) I am not angry nor being confrontational. I am merely stating facts. I hope you're not playing a game that is critical when you lose to that inferior opening.
I am perfectly happy with my strategy and will relish the points when I steal them from a higher rated player. It's funny. Most of those adamantly declaring these "inferior" openings should never be played seem to think GM's are the only chess players out there. Fact is, the overly vast majority of chess players are weak and moderate club players. AND virtually every GM HAS studied the 'inferior' openings because every opening has something in it that can be learned and utilized.
(For those of you who didn't see my first post or remember, the opening I played against a much higher rated player was the Scandinavian.)
May you always have the first move...and if not...may you win anyway. 
look the grob is just bad. it doesnt have any objective merit because you are creating weakness on your kingside with no compensation and not even really developing. maybe you can get away with this and maybe not. its quite easy to lose from the opening playing the grob and even if you study this opening in depth to avoid losing that time wouldve been better spent learning a logical opening. i dont think anyone plays the grob for it merit they just play it to be different. and really that simply shows impatience because there is opportunity to be creative without being bad in any chess game. you dobt need to be 'different' on move 1. so honestly even if you consider being different to be more important than winning you still should not play the grob. because the weakness you create limits your reasonable later decisions more.
This is not entirely true. The Grob has been played at very high levels from GMs such as Keres, and even today, there are a few GMs who still champion it. I am not saying it is as good as 1. e4 or 1. d4, but if someone is able to traverse the minefield and come out with a better position, then may the best player win.
take the nakamura game for example. rybka played the grob and nakamura won. rybka is stronger than nakamura...
Tactically, but from what I understand, that game became a positional battle, and Rybka went into suicide mode at the 50 move limit, which Naka was aware of. This is what I understand about that game.
There's actually a good chance that the Grob is the worst possible first move for white. 1. f3 is bad, but it doesn't create the same irreparable damage to white's kingside as 1. g4. An awful first move isn't enough to decide the game; there's still a lot of chess to be played, so a strong player can make up for it. With that being said, it's a surefire way to hand a clear advantage to your opponent after one move. I don't think any other first move can make that claim.
There isn't a chance that it's the worst. It IS is the worst first move. However 1.c4 g5 is a legitimate opening.
see this grobs is known has worst opening for white because of g4 whites poor king side becomes too weak and now a days nobody falls in these traps of grobs.
Well... white is MUCH worse after 1.g4 d5 2.Bg2 Bxg4! using very simple chess after 3.c4 c6 (white's big cheapo just doesn't work), so this leaves Basman's approach 2.h3, where white is just worse...
Not such a good advertisement for an opening, is it?
Mr. IM pfren, "white is just worse". Any engine will say white is "just worse" after the first move. The point is not to prove the Grob is a perfect opening. The point is to show that black had better know how to respond or black will be in big trouble...which is the case with all openings.
The Sokolsky (Organgutan, Polish) Opening 1.b4 is the Q-side correlate to the Grob. At first glance, I like the idea of it better since it doesn't weaken the monarch area as already alluded. I can also say that 1.b4 confuses the daylights out of many opponents, or at least this has been true in my own case. I've been able to steal black e-pawns and even black k-side rooks from players rated 500 ELO pts higher on many, many occasions. I wonder if the Grob (the "Spike") could achieve some similar coups, but I don't yet have the experience with it to make a conclusion. I'll start trying the Grob immediately, because I love this kind of "bad" chess that allows you to blow away stronger opponents and not get credited for it. Or at least, not get theoretical credit. The best "easy" trap in Grob's is to catch the black Queen's rook following 1.g4 ..d5 2.Bg2 ..Bxg4 3.c4, and now if 3 ..dxc4 then you've won the exchange and the rook is yours.
The Grob sucks! Why are we wasting our lives talking about this?
Relativity, you should know about it by now. If you truly are going to school...
I would categorically disagree. The Grob sucks, and for many reasons. First, the positional weaknesses created by 1. g4?:
e2-e4 is no longer desirable due to the hole created on f4 and the further weakening of f2.
If White plays d2-d4, White's e- and f- pawns become somewhat backward.
h4 is weak already.
Castling kingside is no longer desirable.
Secondly, what can happen to White because of that:
Black can occupy the center at will.
Black is given weaknesses to shoot at right away.
If White chooses to castle queenside, he faces the problem of developing all of his queenside pieces within a relatively cramped position.
Put simply, White is significantly worse. The issue isn't that he has committed any fatal error, but that his position is fundamentally unsound and rather prospectless.
Your opponent making retarded moves isn't the same as good attacking chances.