Tony Kosten's The Latvian Gambit Lives! is a very extensive revision of his The Latvian Gambit of 1994; and yes, this is made crystal clear in Kosten's Introduction! That Introduction is revealing in other respects. In spite of the back cover copy, which is understandably sales-driven and claims that the book "prove[s] the validity of the gambit," Kosten emphasizes that "There is no subjective bias, this is no 'Winning with the ...' book--when a line is good for White, I say so." I will give a practical example of this below. Kosten also claims that his book is a "labor of love," and that is impossible to gainsay. The Latvian Gambit has always had a great many adherents among correspondence players (and Latvians! I remember both Latvian Gambit Magazines and Latvian-organized correspondence tournaments with the gambit when I was growing up). Even with all the attention the gambit gets in that realm, and with all the tournaments, books, and magazine articles that have been devoted it, I would be amazed if there existed a Latvian Gambit devotee out there who didn't instantly scarf up a copy of Kosten's book. He has clearly redefined the territory. As is the case with any author who puts this kind of effort into such a specialized and probably dubious opening, the monetary rewards will fall far short of what he deserves. I am reminded of Gutman's Scotch 4...Qh4 book reviewed earlier, although I have to admit that 4...Qh4 strikes me as ultimately sounder than the Latvian.

By coincidence, this book arrived about a month after I'd finished a section on the Latvian Gambit for a forthcoming book. This made it easy for me to check my recommendations, which were made from White's point of view. Incidentally, one of the books I used a lot (not in Kosten's Bibliography) was "Latvian Gambit: A Grandmaster View" by Lein and Pickard (L&P). This is quite a good source for looking into all those strange and irregular early deviations that Black can try. Anyway, I had proposed that White employ one of two lines. The first was the well-known 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 f5 3.Nxe5 Qf6 4.Nc4 dxe4 5.Nc3, and now Kosten agrees that of Black's 3 reasonable choices, 5...Qg6 6.d3 ultimately doesn't hold up for Black. The same may be said for 5...Qe6 6.Ne3 (Kosten doesn't give 6.Bd2, a move cited in L&P, which I tried to show gives White the better game, the first idea being 6...exd3?! 7.Ne3 dxc2 8.Qxc2); and now, since the main line 6...Nf6 7.Bc4 Qe5 8.d3 (8.d4) 8...exd3 9.0-0 Kd8 10.Bxd3 favors White (I give 10.cxd3! as even better), Kosten turns our attention to 6...c6 7.d3 Bb4, when I like the line 8.Bd2 exd3 9.Bxd3 Nf6 10.0-0 0-0, and here instead of 11.Bc4!?, just 11.Re1. Thus 5...Qe6 is pretty dicey. Kosten's favourite is 5...Qf7"!" 6.Ne3"!" c6 ("!", and it is indeed the best chance) 7.d3"!" exd3 8.Bxd3 d5 (Kosten talks hopefully about 8...Bb4 9.0-0 Nf6, but Elburg's suggestion 10.Ng4! is not taken further--I think that it is quite strong) 9.0-0. Now Kosten turns to either 9...Be6 or 9...Bd6. After 9...Be6 10.Re1 Ne7, I again like 11.Ng4 (threatening Ne5) 11...Nd7 12.Qe2 (followed by Bg5), which I feel is depressing for Black. I also analyzed 10.f4! intending f5, Ng4, and Bg5 as resulting in White's favor. Thus the most often played move is 9...Bd6. The reason that I chose this whole variation for White was an article by Stefan Buecker in Kaissiber Magazine with both analysis and research that seemed to indicate a clear White advantage after 10.Re1 Ne7 11.Nexd5! cxd5 12.Nb5. That is a position that Kosten had both analyzed in his first edition and had game experience with. Now there is far too much analysis to cite here (to move 32!), but the long and short of it is that Kosten exhibits admirable honesty and eventually concludes, "Again Black is in serious trouble. Black desperately needs an improvement here." This is theoretical writing at its best: as a Latvian advocate, Kosten could easily claim that one of the many dubious deviations from the main line is unclear or "deserves analysis," but he avoids the temptation to do so. In fact, the whole 4.Nc4 variation strikes me as a real threat to the Gambit as a whole.

Well, this is going on too long, or I would go through some of the 3.exf5 e4 4.Ng1 lines, which I also think give White an advantage, albeit a smaller one. Kosten doesn't come to that conclusion, and I had to take into account several of his new suggestions and improvements for Black. I seriously doubt that there is a system in this opening to which he hasn't devoted many hours. It's easy to recommend this book as essential material for those involved with this gambit on either side of the board.

YOU CAN FIND THIS BOOK AT