Sound Gambits List

For me unsound is asking the question "is it seriously worse than alternatives" and I feel yes it is. Specifically worse than playing any regular opening. e4 e5, caro, sicilian of almost any kind, french and more.

Id honestly play the Alekhine/Pirc/Modern/Scandi/Evans gambit (as white) way before I would play the Latvian. So for me there are many many many choices better than the Latvian objectively and practically. At some level though it shouldn't matter if it is sound or unsound. But I assume most people are slightly above that level where they should infact play something even remotely sensible.

Am I going to suffer with the Latvian most likely. I suppose your play style also takes some effect in it as well. I am more of a solid/small advantage/positional/grinder player than a wild Tal sacrificer. So the opening does not really fit my likes.

Marshall is very sound in the Ruy and leads to a quick mate if white does not defend properly. I recommend it to anyone for sure (willing to put in some hours to study it deeply enough.)

@a_pleasant_illusion can you please explain in more detail do you mean Nf7?

@howchessYT

I'm talking about the two options for black on move 8: Ne7 and Nb4.

@a_pleasant_illusion the embeded study (fla? ) or fried phillidor?

In the Fried Liver.

A great gambit for Black: the Falkbeer Counter-Gambit against the King's Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.f4 d5). It was the reason I stopped playing my (up till then) favourite KG as White.

@a_pleasant_illusion oh ok @savagechess2k the GM was wrong

Also, to be fair to Seirawan, he doesn't say Ne7 is better than Nb4 in that book (at least, not in the edition I bought so many years ago in the prehistoric times; he may well have said it somewhere else or in an updated edition).

He just gives a very short sample line from Ne7 as an example of play in the Fried Liver. He doesn't even mention Nb4.

His repertoire recommendations in that book have nothing to do with this, and the Fried Liver is only very briefly mentioned in his overview of king pawn openings.

Interpreting those short overviews as theoretical recommendations would be a bit unfair :)

Tbh I have no idea whats going on in the fried liver these days. Its very interesting and I remember there was a big theoretical discussion a few years ago. In general I would be very careful with playing that line as black unless you know everything. There was a cool Van Wely (iirc) game a while back that is worth checking out.

Edit: As someone mentioned earlier I might have been thinking of a Shirov game. I will do some research.
Sneaky edit: lichess.org/eb7VRWqb is the game I was referring to. I was also suprised to find a quite recent Agdestein game: lichess.org/LKNxN8mF

As white I've been trying 1.a3 e5 2.c4.
It isn't super gambity (although you're really hoping that your opponent doesn't play d4) but it can be confusing for your opponent. The English Opening (1. c4) isn't super common, so to play a really uncommon opening that transposes into a less common opening sounds like a good throw-off technique.

Example: