Latvian Gambit

The Latvian Gambit, also called the Greco Countergambit, is 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 f5: Black answers the attack on e5 by attacking White's e-pawn with the f-pawn. It looks like a King's Gambit with colours reversed and a move down. It is aggressive but objectively dubious, and it often leads to wild, tricky positions. Its ECO code is C40.

Origins

It is one of the oldest chess openings. Giulio Cesare Polerio analysed it in the late 16th century, and the Italian player Gioachino Greco (1600–1634) contributed to its early theory, which is why some writers still call it the Greco Countergambit.

The name "Latvian Gambit" honours several Latvian players who analysed it, above all Kārlis Bētiņš. When the Austrian master Albert Becker published an article that Bētiņš found dismissive of the gambit, Bētiņš answered by publishing and analysing one of his own games with it, Ilyin-Zhenevsky vs. Bētiņš, 1921.

Main lines

• 3.Nxe5 is considered the main line. After the usual 3...Qf6, the traditional continuation has been 4.d4 d6 5.Nc4 fxe4, often followed by 6.Nc3 Qg6. The immediate 4.Nc4, the Leonhardt Variation, keeps the option of d2–d3 and has become more popular in recent years. After 4...fxe4 5.Nc3 Qf7 6.Ne3 c6 White can take the pawn with 7.Nxe4 or decline it with the more popular 7.d3.
• 3.Bc4 leads to perhaps the most notorious and heavily analysed line: 3...fxe4 4.Nxe5 Qg5 5.d4 Qxg2 6.Qh5+ g6 7.Bf7+ Kd8 8.Bxg6 Qxh1+ 9.Ke2. Nowadays Black often prefers 4...d5 instead of 4...Qg5.
• 3.exf5 e4 4.Ne5 Nf6 5.Be2 is recommended by John L. Watson and Eric Schiller.
• 3.Nc3 was first analysed by the American master Stasch Mlotkowski in the 1916 British Chess Magazine. Today Black's answer is considered to be 3...fxe4.
• 3.d4 fxe4 4.Nxe5 Nf6 5.Bg5 d6 leads, as usual, to sharp play. The quiet 3.d3 does not promise White any advantage.

Who plays it

The Latvian has a dubious reputation: FIDE Master Dennis Monokroussos called it "possibly the worst opening in chess". Paul van der Sterren wrote that playing it with success requires a sharp eye for tactics and total contempt for what theory says about it.

It has always been rare at the top level, but some correspondence players are devoted to it, and its surprise value is high because few opponents know it. Boris Spassky and Mikhail Chigorin played it, usually in casual games, and even Bobby Fischer and José Raúl Capablanca lost to it. Sweden's Jonny Hector is one of the few grandmasters to play it in serious competition. He has argued that it is not as bad as its reputation and that even with best play White's advantage is not large.

The numbers

On Lichess White and Black each win 48.2% of the 3.7 million games. Under 1400 White wins 52.4% against 44.3%, but between 1800 and 2199 Black is slightly ahead, 48.3% against 47.9%, and from 2200 up White wins 47.6% against 46.8%. Masters are a different story: in 365 games over the board White won 67.7% and Black only 15.1%.